Miss Obeng
by Haleine Delail
Summary: One minute it's 2007, the next, it's 1969 and they're trapped. As the Doctor and Martha follow Sally's instructions to get the TARDIS back, can they concentrate on this task AND stop a mysterious young girl from causing a huge time paradox?
1. The How

**AT THE RISK OF CREATING MY OWN 'WHO-VERSE,' WHICH I HAVE NO INTENTION OF DOING, I AM, YET AGAIN, WRITING A STORY THAT CONTINUES ON FROM ANOTHER. **_**SHADES OF BLUE**_** ESTABLISHES THE DOCTOR AND MARTHA'S RELATIONSHIP, **_**FERAL**_** TESTS AND RE-AFFIRMS IT, AND THIS STORY IS WHAT COMES NEXT. **

**THOUGH THIS WILL PROVE A MULTI-CHAPTER STORY, I THINK OF THIS FIRST CHAPTER AS A STORY IN AND OF ITSELF. IT ANSWERS THE QUESTION I'VE BEEN ASKING EVER SINCE I WATCHED "BLINK": HOW THE HECK WERE THE WEEPING ANGELS ABLE TO GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO THE DOCTOR AND MARTHA TO ZAP THEM BACK IN TIME? AND IN MY INFINITE LOVE OF TEN/MARTHA PAIRINGS... WELL, JUST READ ON.**

**AND BY THE WAY, THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE JUST A BIT WACKY. I DECIDED TO GO FOR THE HUMOR THIS TIME, RATHER THAN THE ANGST. ENJOY!**

* * *

THE HOW

Something unseen had brought closure to the Doctor's mind. After eighteen months of pining after a lost love, he'd found a new one. And then hideous, horrible circumstances had opened the old wound, and found that lost love for him again. But she couldn't be what she was – she was changed. She'd been to hell and back, and wanted nothing to do with this life, this travel, the madness that was the Doctor's world. He had been fractured for a long time, wondering, hoping and dreaming… tormenting himself.

And now he could stop. The recurring nightmare was releasing him back into the wild, and he could start anew, again, with Martha Jones at his side.

But after sorting out their debts in Victorian London, they had gone to a planet where life was sustained by a magnetic pulse which maintained all inhabitants' heartbeats between 80 and 95 beats per minute. Any higher than that, and the cardiovascular system explodes. This made their visit very difficult, because it prevented them from doing the two things they relied upon the most, one of them being running. When the TARDIS was stolen on their first day there, they were obliged to _walk _around looking for help, with even intonation explain that their vessel was taken, breathe normally when they nearly saw it burned upon a pyre of alpha-neutrino incendiary matter, and remain cool when they were taken as prisoners of the royal family.

Remain cool and tragically asexual in the face of near-certain death and in the confines of a tight, steadily warming jail cell…

So, by the time they rescued the TARDIS and left, six lunar days after they arrived, they were ready to burst. All they wanted was to break out into a good sprint, do some quality shouting, and of course, shag like there was no tomorrow. The plan was to get safely back to the 21st century on Earth, with a stop-off in London for some of Martha's personal effects, and then to spend at least a week in Tahiti doing all the things that get the pulse pounding.

Including parasailing, the Doctor had mentioned. He'd never been parasailing, not in 900 years' time.

But cruel fate intervened once again when the Doctor set the TARDIS down across the street from the restaurant where Martha's mother happened to be having lunch on a sleepy, grey afternoon in 2007. Before Martha knew what was happening, Francine was out the door and throwing herself at her daughter.

"Martha!" she shouted, hugging her middle child. "How did you know I was here?"

The Doctor stepped outside the blue box and had to hold back from rolling his eyes in exasperation when he saw Francine.

"We didn't," Martha said. "It's just a coincidence." She looked up at the Doctor with an expression that seemed to say _of all the streets in the whole city…_

"Well, I'm glad to see you, darling," said Francine. Tightly, she greeted the suited man. "Doctor."

"Hello, Francine," he returned. "Lovely day."

Unfazed, she grabbed Martha's hand and began dragging her across the street. "Well, we haven't even ordered yet. Come have lunch with me and Mitzi."

"Mum, I can't!" she said. "What about the Doctor?"

Francine stopped. She looked at the Doctor. "What about him?"

"We have plans!"

"Lunch plans? Can't you postpone?"

Martha exhaled angrily. "Mum, you're being rude."

But the Doctor intervened. "Martha, it's fine. I'll meet you at your flat at seven tonight. Then we can carry on with our plans."

She sighed in resignation. "Okay." She looked at him with pleading eyes. He gave her a clandestine little smile and re-entered the TARDIS.

Martha sat through lunch tight-lipped against her mother and Mitzi's laughter. Nothing about this encounter was fun for her, she didn't even much enjoy the food. After three days with the Victorians and another six locked in the Temple of Chastity with the Doctor on the magnetic heartbeat planet, anything that kept her restrained in any fashion was unwelcome. She was wound like a nine-day clock. She wanted to let loose so badly, her joints actually ached from the coiling. She wanted to take off down the street running, screaming, tearing her clothes off...

But she did not. In fact, she was so well-behaved, she thought she might vomit.

* * *

In very much the same caged-tiger fashion, the Doctor paced inside the TARDIS. He could go anywhere he wanted right now. He could disgorge himself from the tightness that he felt in any fashion he chose... but somehow, this was more fun, more alive. Feeling socially oppressed, physically restrained and sexually frustrated was actually an interesting change, which he relished. Not that he had any inclination toward remaining this way any longer than it took to get Martha back into the TARDIS and out of her clothes, but still, the tactile entanglement of it, the _humanness _of it was sort of delicious.

And it made him want to be a bit more human. Sure, he could show off for Martha once again and take her to Tahiti in a matter of seconds. But to do something really grounded, something really _human_... this had always been his challenge.

But he was a coiled spring, and he'd never been more equal to it. He used the controls on the console to send Martha a text message. "Change of plans. Toulouse Lautrec at 7. 140 Newington Butts. Don't bring mum."

He resisted the urge to jump ahead seven hours so that he could see her right now, and forced himself to kill some time by reading. And then, in such a human fashion, that deteriorated into watching television, but at least it was the Food Network and not a marathon of that singularly obnoxious American sit-com _Roseanne_ which he had always, for some reason, never been able to turn off once it got its hooks into him. The food programme confirmed what he had always suspected about saltwater taffy: it contains no saltwater.

At half-past six, he actually took a bus to the white and glass cornerstone that was Brasserie Toulouse-Lautrec. It was a nod to the French painters that he and Martha had failed to meet while they were toiling in the bowels of the Paris Opéra in 1882. They hadn't made it to the New Year's Eve party to hobnob with the elite of Paris' genius scum, so this was the next best _human_ thing to do.

He requested a table near the back, ordered a good wine and sat, facing the door. When Martha entered, she nearly stole his breath. She was in a chiffon dress with a misty emerald rainforest pattern. It was strapless, knee-length and empire-waisted, gathered at the bust and the striking colour was absolutely perfect for her _caffè lattè_ complexion. Her hair was down, but pulled away from her face. Silver chandelier earrings and the soft curl at the ends of her hair framed her neck and made it incredibly enticing to kiss.

She saw him and approached, smiling that radiant smile that tended these days to make his knees weak. He stood.

"Good evening," he said, cordially pulling out her chair. "Lovely to see you."

"Likewise," she answered, equally cordially stifling a giggle. She sat, and he pushed her chair in.

As if on cue, a waiter appeared with the requested wine. He made a big production out of opening the bottle with flair, offering it to the Doctor to taste and then pouring it with flourish into two crystal goblets.

"So what brought on the change in plan?" she asked, sipping the sweet white.

"I wanted to take you out on a proper date," he told her, leaving out the entire train of thought that had led him here instead of to Tahiti. "We've saved the world together, and other worlds too, but we've never shared a meal and wine and then danced."

"You dance?" she asked, coquettishly.

He feigned exasperation. "Why is everyone so surprised to hear that I can dance? I am a _spectacular _dancer. Just you wait, Martha Jones!"

She laughed and said, "I'm excited to see!"

When the waiter returned, they ordered baked brie with skewered roasted garlic cloves as an appetizer. Then, they proceeded, by turns, to delight and disgust those sitting nearest by feeding each other from their fingers, including catching the dribbling cheese from each others' wrists, kissing in-between tastes of garlic, enlacing their hands, giggling like idiots and generally being oblivious to the world around them.

They shared an entrée of giant scallops in lemon butter, breadcrumb-stuffed tomatoes with rosemary and saffron, and carrots julienne. By this time, the wine had been drained, and they asked for a second bottle. They finished this with the entrée, which they periodically fed each other (from forks, this time), oohing and aahing sensually over the tenderness of the scallop meat and the carrots steamed to spice-infused perfection.

At eight o'clock, the jazz piano music began, but it was upbeat and the two lovers in back were still licking saffron from their fingers. At half-past, the lights dimmed, a double bassist joined the pianist and they began playing the pendulous _It Had To Be You_. The Doctor stood and offered Martha his hand. She didn't have to be asked twice (or even once). She followed him to the small area near the piano which passed for a dance-floor, and followed the suit of others around them dancing close.

The Doctor moved well, but honestly, Martha had no idea about dance steps or what constituted a "good" ballroom dancer. She was just happy that he held her close and that she could feel his breath on her skin.

"Thank you for this," she whispered. "It's been so long since I have had a night like this." She sighed in his ear, and the little wisp of warmth and the sound of her breathy voice stirred him.

"You're welcome," he whispered back, gazing at her. "It's been a while for me too. So glad I get to share it with you."

"I forgot how much fun this could be," she mused. "First dates, I mean."

He chuckled. "First date? Yes, I suppose it is. Except most first dates don't end the way this one will." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You know, with space travel and lovemaking."

She stretched up and put her mouth against his ear. "Doctor... I'm practically ready to pop." Her whisper came barely articulately. "I don't need you to make love to me."

A pause as a frisson of hot and cold shock bolted through the Doctor's body. "What do you need?"

"Something else entirely," she sighed into his ear, still barely to be heard. Her tongue snaked out and subtly stroked the curve that formed the top of his ear, and suddenly, he found his knees turning to mush. "Pay the bill. Right now," she demanded huskily.

She backed away from him, holding his gaze, and disappeared back into the dining area. He fumbled with the cash in his pocket and found Martha back at their table, gathering her handbag. He left a bit too much money on the table, threw on his overcoat and then took Martha and kissed her hard before pulling her out the door.

"Where did you park?" she asked, feeling a bit desperate.

"Where I was before, over by Surrey Water," he answered, leading her across the street. "I took the bus over here."

"You did what?" she shrieked. "Why did you do that?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time!"

Wine and desire coursed through her like adrenaline, mixing with the pent-up emotions of the past couple weeks. Frustration was settling in as an unwelcome guest, more so with each block they walked. And if that weren't enough, it began to rain. She let out the cry of aggravation she'd been holding in for far too long.

The Doctor offered her his coat, sensing that the cold rain on her bare shoulders might not be the most pleasant of circumstances for her.

"It's too long and too heavy, especially if it gets soaked," she told him. "Let's just find someplace to stop!"

He looked about. They were in a strange tree-laden area, one of the few non-park areas such as this in the city. The TARDIS was out here somewhere, but Martha did not want to walk – she clearly would rather wait out the rain at this point. Trouble was, there was nothing nearby – no coffee shops or pubs or even a Laundromat. But through a patch of trees, the Doctor thought he saw some brick for a split second in the lightning. He had no idea what it was, but he called out, "Come on!" and began dragging Martha in that direction.

A large, ancient house loomed in front of them, and it looked deserted. Martha didn't like the look of the angel statues which ornamented the garden, but she quickly forgot them in favour of wondering how they'd gain entry. Fortunately, the sonic screwdriver saved the day, and within seconds, they were inside a deserted, but dry, old mansion. He tried a light switch, and to his surprise, a dim fixture illuminated itself over the staircase.

He tousled the water out of his hair with both hands, and asked, "You all right?"

"Yeah," said Martha, slicking back the hair hair plastered to her head.

"Are you cold?" he wanted to know.

"No, I'm just pissed off," she told him, stomping into an adjacent room, beginning to pace back and forth. Her dress shoes made a loud 'clack' each time they came into contact with the floorboards.

He followed her. "About what?"

"Well, not pissed off, exactly, just... frustrated," she said, stopping her pace with flourish, crossing her arms to stare at him. "It's always when we _need_ to get back to the TARDIS that we can't."

"Why do we _need_ the TARDIS?" he asked, again cocking his eyebrow in a secretive way.

Suddenly, she was all warm again, and smiling sheepishly. "You know."

"Oh, to hell with _that_," he insisted. He grabbed her, kissing her harder than ever before and pushing her nearly off her feet. Before she knew what was happening, she found her back up against the hideously papered wall. His erection was insistent against her abdomen and when he pulled away from the kiss, the look in his eyes was one of pure hunger.

She reached down and grasped the waistband of his trousers, grown tight with extra girth now apparent in the front. She practically ripped open the zip and as soon as his member was freed, he wrapped his arms around her, supporting her bum in his hands, and she jumped up to help. She was never sure what happened to her knickers after that, whether somehow they were removed or simply torn, but it didn't matter. What did matter was the relief she felt when he slammed his hard length into her and pressed her into the wall with a driving urgency. She shut her eyes tight and let herself be taken.

Over and over he drove into her, giving in to all the pent-up forces that had been brewing since even before the planet of deadly heartbeats. Her legs clasped hard around his waist while her arms clung to his shoulders. She scratched at the back of his suit as she felt her temperature rise and her back pressed more and more flush against the wall. She panted and whispered his name, encouraged him, begged him, and he never stopped satisfying. In return, he hissed her name right back at her, told her how badly he needed her, and more often, moaned inarticulately. And once he was in rhythm, an orgasm rose up in her like internal combustion and pushed its way up from between her legs into her torso and her extremities and burned her until nothing was left. She went limp and opened her eyes.

"Doctor!" she screamed out, seeing over his shoulder that the creepy-looking statues from the garden were now somehow in the room with them.

But he mistook her cry of fear for one of passion, and he did not stop thrusting. Martha knew that he was too far gone to stop now, and even with this new menace, she wasn't sure she wanted him to stop. Danger is powerful, and she felt another climax brewing inside. Even so, she moaned again, "Doctor!"

He moaned something back, a sound which seemed to come from the pit of his stomach rather than from his voicebox or brain, and his body was ruling his actions now. There was no turning back. Her second climax bubbled to the surface, and she found herself, again, flying into pleasure as though it were a black hole. Somehow, the statues were moving closer, and now they were reaching out, but she never saw them move – they were just displacing somehow. Almost within the blink of her eyes.

"Doctor!" she cried again. "They're here!"

He returned with a grunt, and a growl-like whisper of "I'm coming," and he drove her painfully and carelessly into the wall. A second explosion took her at the same time as it took him, and Martha shut her eyes, once more to yield to the sweet, brutal release. The last thing she saw was the ominous stone finger of an angel statue, and the last thing she heard was a loud _pop_, just as her body gave way.


	2. The When

THE WHEN

Panting, Martha remained pinned between the Doctor and the wall. She felt limp and sated, as though _at last_ her body was relaxed and sentient. The blinding desire of the previous weeks had finally caught up with them and asserted itself, as it turned out, just at the wrong moment.

Still, they recovered from their tryst slowly, relishing the throb of afterglow.

And for his part, he panted back in her ear. "God, we needed that," he hissed, after catching his breath. He began kissing her neck again, slowly bringing them both down from the high.

Martha opened her eyes. But she could see nothing. No old house, no hideous wallpaper, no scary stone angels and no Doctor. If she couldn't feel him around and inside her, she'd doubt whether he was there.

"Doctor, have you got your eyes open?" she asked, tentatively.

"I don't know," he answered absently. "I suppose not."

There was a pause, and she waited for him to realise that inexplicably, suddenly they were in pitch blackness when they had been, just moments before, shagging against the wall of a reasonably well-lit house. Then, the light kisses along her neck stopped, and she heard him whisper, "Shit."

"I know!" she cried out. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he answered. "I'm going to pull away from you now, okay?"

"Okay," she said, disentangling her legs from around his waist and preparing to be set on her feet. His member slipped out of her and she put her feet down. Disgustingly, her left foot landed in what felt like a bucket of water. "Ew!" she cried out, instinctively yanking her foot out and trying to step to the right toward her dry foot. She fell sideways against what felt and sounded like a metal shelf, and some very loud debris dislodged and fell to the floor.

A few more expletives escaped both of their lips, and then the Doctor asked, "You all right?"

"Yes."

"Where are you? I'm reaching out."

She reached out for him and felt the soft fabric of the Doctor's tan overcoat, and grabbed on. It felt like a forearm. "I'm here," she said.

"All right, don't let go," he said. "I have to put myself back together."

She said, "Okay." She felt him lower his arm, then she heard the zip of his trousers. Then she felt him grab her arm, then her hand.

"All right, that's sorted. Are you decent?"

She felt for her dress to make sure the strapless garment was still covering all of the appropriate areas. "Yeah, only... can't find my knickers."

"Can you do without them?"

"I suppose."

"Good. Now, shuffle your feet carefully so that you push aside anything that's in your way, and so you don't smack your shin on a tombstone or a cat or something," he said. "I'll go first."

"Can you see a door or anything?" she asked.

"Not really," he answered. "But maybe if we move, something will reveal itself!"

As they began to move, the Doctor seemed to bump into some other metal article, because once again, the space was filled with the din of metal hitting the floor unceremoniously, and hitting other metal things even less ceremoniously.

Martha couldn't help but giggle a bit. "This is barmy!" she whispered.

"What's going on in there?" a voice said from somewhere muffled.

"Hello?" the Doctor called.

"I know you're in there, so you might as well come out and face me!" the voice insisted. It was a man's voice, and its accent was muttled.

"Er, we'd love to," the Doctor answered. "But we don't know how. It's a bit dark. Can you give us a hand?"

"Oh, for heaven's... hold on!"

There was a pause, and the Doctor and Martha heard what sounded like keys rustling. A moment later, a door opened in front of them, and a very annoyed-looking man stood, framed by dim light. "Well, out you come, then," he said, gesturing.

They could now see that they were in a large-ish broom cupboard. Martha's foot had landed in a mop bucket, she had knocked over a metal supply shelf, and the Doctor had toppled a stack of metal paint pans. They navigated through the junk that covered the remaining six feet between them and the door, and stepped out into a white, sterile corridor. The man who had rescued them was short, approximately sixty years old with a scraggly grey beard. He was wearing green polyester trousers with some sort of white uniform shirt, and a deeply disapproving expression.

"Now don't think I don't know what you were doing in there, young whippersnappers," he told them, shaking his finger. "And I'm here to tell ya, you wouldn't be the first!"

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other, and nearly burst out laughing when their eyes met.

The man eyed Martha carefully, and, she thought, a bit disdainfully. She shifted uncomfortably, looking back at him. The man looked at the Doctor and said, "Where did you find her?"

"Pardon?"

The man smiled with a bit of mischief in his eyes. "Oh, I see, I see. A bit of trouble from the family, eh?"

"Pardon?" the Doctor repeated.

"I understand," the man assured him. "But I still must tell you that I disapprove. What's more, I can't for the life of me work out how you got in there! I carry the only key."

"Yeah, I was sort of wondering that myself," the Doctor said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Say, I'm the Doctor and this is Martha. Perhaps you could be a mate and tell us where the hell we are?"

The man rolled his eyes and muttered as he began to walk away.

"Oi!" the Doctor called. "What's that?"

"Listen you," the man said, shaking his finger again. "I'm a tolerant man, and if you want to have a poke in the broom cupboard with your black bird here, that's one thing... but if you're on some of those hallucination drugs, well, you can forget about getting any help from me. I don't hold with that sort of nonsense."

Martha opened her mouth to protest, but the Doctor stopped her. They watched the man shuffle away.

When he didn't say anything for a longer-than-usual period, Martha said, "Er, do I really have to ask?"

"You can ask, but I don't know the answer," he told her. He took her hand and began walking down the corridor. "Let's find out together, shall we?"

As they walked, she remembered. "Doctor, before, when we were... you know, against the wall in that house, I could see over your shoulder. I saw statues. They were moving."

He stopped dead in his tracks. "Statues? What sort of statues?"

"I don't know, they were statues. Stone. Angels."

"You saw them? Why didn't you tell me when you saw them? We could have avoided this whole fiasco!"

"I tried, but you were... not exactly listening to reason at that moment, Doctor."

"You should have tried harder! You could have stopped me!"

She stuck out one hip and put her hand on it. "Doctor, a moving train couldn't have stopped you."

At this revelation, he seemed annoyed. How could he have got so lost in the moment that he didn't hear Martha asking for help, warning him of moving stone? Briefly, he reminded himself that this is why he'd made it his policy in the past not to become "distracted" by a companion. But he shook that thought away – he'd made his choice with Martha.

He sighed and took her hand again. "Fine. Let's just figure out where we are. _When_ we are."

"When?" she asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, you see, those angels you saw... they live on potential energy. They zap you back into the past and feed on all of the moments you_ could_ have had."

"Fantastic. How very abstract of them."

They made a right turn and saw a door at the very end of the hall. They sped toward it and walked through. It was early evening, based upon the amount of light and the number of people milling about. Upon looking up at the building they were in, they discovered that it was a hotel, and they had just walked out of the basement level. They made their way to the front of the hotel, and went inside.

The girl behind the counter was wearing a white and red flowered dress, long-sleeved, square-necked and darted in front, and her blonde hair was piled Marge Simpson-high. Martha guessed that she had single-handedly taken three years off the ozone with the hairspray she had used. Her black eyeliner totally engulfed her blue eyes, and false lashes framed them in a creepy kewpie-doll sort of way. Her lipstick was pink and opaque, and she chewed gum like it was tar.

"Hello there," the Doctor said. "We'd like a room, please."

The girl eyed Martha. "You sure?" she asked.

"Oh, for God's sake," Martha sighed. "Can you just tell us today's date?"

"It's thirteenth February," the girl said. "Tomorrow's Valentine's Day."

"Okay. Thirteen February, nineteen...." Martha said, searching the girl's face for signs of life. She could guess from the girl's attire that it was the 1960's but it might help to have something more specific to work with.

After too long, the girl finally answered, "Sixty-nine," as though Martha had completely lost her mind.

"Right then," Martha said. "And where is the nearest train station?"

The girl gave quick instructions, letting the Doctor and Martha know that it would be approximately a five-minute walk. The Doctor again offered his overcoat, and this time, Martha took it. It was February, and she was bare-shouldered. There was no rain to soak the thing, so she thought she might be able to wield it.

As they left the hotel, the Doctor said, "That was clever!"

"Yeah, well, I could see that you were about to take the long way round, so I grabbed a shortcut," she ribbed him. "Besides, the fewer people that look at us like a circus sideshow, the better."

"Sorry," he told her. He kissed the top of her head. "I promise, next time, we'll go somewhere where no-one cares."

"Right. Well, we just have to get back to the TARDIS," she pointed out. "Then we can do the Tahiti thing, like we said."

"Well, I'm afraid it's not that simple," he told her. "The TARDIS was left in park in 2007. We're in 1969."

Martha gasped. "Oh my God! We're trapped in 1969!"

For the second time in ten minutes, the Doctor stopped dead in his tracks.

"Trapped in 1969!" he said. "Martha, look in the pocket of that coat!"

She searched the pouches on the inside of the Doctor's heavy tan coat, and the contents astonished her. But she knew instantly what he was looking for: the plastic purple packet given to them by Sally Sparrow in 2007. She found it and handed it to him with a happy flourish.

"Ha!" he exclaimed. "This is our ticket home!"


	3. The Plan

THE PLAN

_"17 November, 2007, London_

_"This is a narrative that is never meant to see the light of day. If you are coming across this accidentally because both Larry Nightingale and I are dead, please read no further and burn this packet and all of its contents. It is the story of an experience that I would never trade for anything, but that will seem completely insane to anyone other than Larry or me. I still do not have all of the answers, and I'm beginning to think I may never. My collection of memorabilia relating to a man who calls himself The Doctor has been bordering upon obsession, but the more I reflect, the less I understand._

_"It began just before dawn on a Tuesday in September – perhaps eight weeks ago. A classmate had put me onto an old house near Surrey Water called Wester Drumlins. It's in an oddball part of the city – there are hardly any other houses nearby, but plenty of trees and winding roads. He told me that he had been thinking of going there to take some photos for our project on Emotional Spaces, but that the place gave him the creeps, so he decided not to go inside. But fearless me, I crawled over the gate in the wee hours of the morning and found a melancholy mansion, chock full of memories and beautifully dissheveled rooms._

_"And then, in the parlour, something caught my eye. The letter 'B' was peeking out from behind a torn patch of wallpaper. In curiosity, I tore the paper away, and the word 'Beware' appeared. This startled me, as I was alone in a deserted house, and a random warning of 'beware' is decidedly unsettling. But it didn't stop me from uncovering the rest of the message, little by little. The message was strange. It warned me to 'duck' several times, and to my utter shock, it contained my name. In its entirety, the message read, 'Beware the Weeping Angel. Oh, and duck. No really, duck! Sally Sparrow, duck now! Love from the Doctor (1969).'_

_"When the message said 'duck now,' I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, and I ducked. A large rock broke a window to my left and flew through the space once occupied by my head. I should have been brained. When I shined my torch in that direction, a stone angel, who appeared to be weeping, stood outside the window. It was the only thing nearby, and at the time, it seemed impossible (though thoroughly disturbing) that a statue could have attacked me with a rock. The Doctor's message called it the Weeping Angel._

_"My resolve was so shaken, I went to see my best, most trusted friend Kathy, even though it was ludicrously early. When I arrived at her flat, several televisions were playing the same clip of a man..."_

"Okay, one thing at a time," Martha interrupted the Doctor's flow. "Maybe you can see the big picture with all the details in it, but I can't. Can we just start with this message on the wall?"

They were on a late-night train from Brighton (where they had landed) to London (where they needed to be). He had been reading to her aloud from the top page of Sally Sparrow's packet as they watched the darkened countryside fly by in the night. They had both, upon separate occasions, perused the conents of the packet, but neither had read in-depth. They had remembered the year in which they were to become stuck, they figured it would happen around 2007 or so, since that's when they ran into Sally outside that DVD shop, and so the Doctor had made sure that the packet was in his coat pocket whenever they left the TARDIS in the early 21st century on Earth. These precautions had proved enough, and both were confident that they would eventually be transported home. Though, as Sally's narrative said, they had no idea how long they would be stuck here.

"A very good idea," the Doctor agreed, closing the packet. "We'll go back to that house tomorrow and write the message, and then we'll just take it one step at a time from there."

"What about tonight?" she asked.

"I suppose we'll just get a room," he shrugged. "Soho's full of little hotels."

Upon arriving in London, to save Martha from any further brain damage, the Doctor obtained a room himself on the ground floor and then let Martha in through a rear door. They slept side-by-side, each brain racing with the events of the day, and a mental list of what needed to happen tomorrow. Martha wanted some new clothes – if nothing else, she'd lost track of her knickers. The Doctor thought that copies should be made of all of the pages of Sally's packet – perhaps they could take photos of the documents, just in case. Martha figured they would need to find a way to make money. The Doctor wondered whether they would have, here in 1969, the Weeping Angels to contend with, and if so, how could they guarantee safe passage into and out of Wester Drumlins, especially if they were to accomplish a distracting task? The last time they'd gone in distracted, they'd wound up zapped.

But underlying it all, it was the idea of the angels themselves keeping them both clawing at sleep. Neither was sure when they finally yielded, but the morning sun woke them both with unpleasant slowness. The room had heated up like an oven, and when Martha sat up in bed, her hair was sticking to her forehead.

"Ugh, it's like Death Valley," she groaned. She moved to stand, but realised that she was nude. "Can you open the window, please?"

"Yeah," he groaned back, scratching his eyes. He stumbled across the room and cranked open the squeaky window. "Sleep all right?"

"I suppose, considering the spring stuck in my back. You?"

"Same."

Martha's green strapless dress was slung over a rickety chair. She looked at it with disdain. This did not escape the Doctor.

"Maybe you should go get us both some clothes, while I check out Wester Drumlins," he suggested, picking up his own shirt from its spread-out position over the vanity. "We might be here a while, and might fancy changing our clothes at some point."

She watched him dress. His suit was only slightly wrinkled, and frankly, he looked as fresh as he ever did in it. For her part, when she finally climbed back into the green chiffon, she felt flat and sweaty. The few times when she'd spent the night with someone and had to walk home in dress clothes the following morning, she had felt this way. But she never thought she'd be taking _the walk of shame_ after a night with the Doctor.

"While you're out, we'll need a permanent marker and some wallpaper," the Doctor told her. "Would you mind?"

"No, I don't mind," she answered. She walked over and checked his collar tags for sizes, then asked him for a shoe size.

"Chuck Taylors and Sharpies exist this year," he said.

She looked him up and down amusedly. "Well, then, what more do we need?"

They stepped out through the back door of the hotel. He gave her a bit of money and the psychic paper, which he always kept handy in his trenchcoat. "Meet you back here?" she asked.

"Noon," he said.

* * *

This time, he took the Tube. Tottenham Court Road to Canada Water, and then he walked the rest of the way to Wester Drumlins. He pulled his coat around him against the crisp February morning air, and as he walked past 140 Newington Butts, the future site of Brasserie Toulouse-Lautrec, he sighed. What a night that had been. The food, the wine, the dancing, the company... the time-shattering sex. He made a mental note that he'd have to do more things like that, have more romantic ideas, make an effort to keep her happy, since she was bound to fall into a kind of depression now that they were stuck here. He was experienced at being stranded, but she, he knew, would slowly begin to lose hope and gain panic.

The house was in a bit better shape than in 2007, but it still looked clearly deserted. He entered the grounds the same way as he and Martha had entered before, thirty-eight years later, from the back, barely able to see the brick. Slowly, the shape of the mansion came into focus. He stood for a moment and looked up at it, feeling almost bitterly toward the house itself for causing this mess. _If we hadn't come here_... he thought. But then, in the last 900 years of seeing time as a nonlinear spiral of cause to effect to sideways tangent back to effect, he had had a similar thought nigh on a billion times. He'd learned to shove it away whenever it popped into his head. '

_We came here and now we're trapped. It is what it is._

Something caught his eye across the grounds. It was a rather funny-looking silver sculpture that resembled a large figure-eight with a moth crawling up the side. It was a piece entitled _The Cycle of Life_, by an artist called Raymond Bean. He knew this because he had seen it in 2007 when he'd parked the TARDIS. He'd glanced at it briefly and noted the title and sculptor, just after Martha had disappeared into the restaurant across the street with her mum. In thirty-eight years, that area would be wooded over and crowded with trees, making the house invisible from the vantage point of the sculpture. Here in 1969, it was clear that they were on the same grounds. A realisation hit him and caused a frisson of dread to shoot through him.

_The TARDIS is on the grounds of Wester Drumlins. The Weeping Angels will have access to it._

The angels feed on potential time energy. What could be more of a smorgasbord for them than a time machine which carries a piece of the vortex in its heart? They would be sure to home in on it immediately and they would undoubtedly stop at nothing to get it in their possession. And if they did, they could absorb the entire vortex by extension, but they wouldn't just harbour it, they would devour it, destroying all time in the process. The future and past would cease to exist, consumed by the silent assassins.

He desperately hoped that, as always, he had locked the door when he'd left. The TARDIS might be movable by any average forklift from the outside, but its lock was not of any world that existed now, and would be impenetrable to anyone other than a Time Lord.

Good. No worries there, then. Assuming it's locked.

Again, he pushed the thought away. _Insert 'what ifs' into the brain of a time traveller, shake until insane_. No good here.

As he stood, staring, contemplating the sculpture and the implications of the end of time itself, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Something in the house was moving. He looked up at a bedroom window on the second level, and there stood a stone angel, gazing down upon him. Another wave of impending doom fell over him as he looked into its blank face. Something so stoic, so hard, so seemingly unfeeling... but it was looking at him. It could see him. It could hear him. It _knew_ he was there.

A rustling in the dry leaves behind him. He turned. Another angel was there, not fifty feet away. He wondered if the angels could sense what a tasty treat a Time Lord would be to them. A creature who fed on the wasted timeline of another being would be positively gorging itself on a being set to live another hundred, five hundred, a thousand years...

But he did not allow himself time to contemplate this for too long, because another angel appeared on his right while he was looking at the second. The fourth, he guessed, was on its way, and the first one from the house was probably hitting the front door of the mansion right about now. He had to get the hell out of there.

He ran at top-speed toward the sculpture and off the property of Wester Drumlins, into the clear line of vision of some passers-by. He had known full well that the angels could travel at incredible speeds, but he hadn't seen any other option. No matter – he was safe for now. As long as there were people looking, he was safe from the angels. He was glad to have answered the question of whether or not he'd have them to contend with here in 1969 (questions were always better when answered, weren't they?), but it didn't solve the problem of how to accomplish writing on the walls of the house without getting thrown back in time again. Just like before, he'd be facing the wall, and Martha couldn't look in four directions at once. Even if she could, they were likely to become surrounded. He needed a plan.

He looked back toward the grounds and caught a glimpse of the Weeping Angels through the trees. They had gone back, more or less, to their original positions, poised to pounce upon the next passer-by. From this distance, through the greenery, weeping, they looked almost serene... like angels.

_Oh-ho-ho... Doctor, you are a devil, you are._

An idea was forming. He could feel the wheels catching and turning in his mind, and he smiled to himself. It wasn't _the_ most brilliant idea he had ever had, but it might be one of the most entertaining. He ran back to Canada Water and took the Tube back to Tottingham Court Road, and disappeared between two heavy wooden doors of the nearest church.

* * *

Her trip to the hardware store had been a singularly disturbing experience. First, she had been looked at with disgust when she'd entered the shop, she thought, mostly because she was a woman wearing a chiffon dress in a hardware store. Most men would probably think she had no business being there, and she thought they might be right. Next, she was fairly certain she'd bought the first Sharpie that had ever been made, yet they looked exactly the same as in her time. Third, she _recognised _the wallpaper she needed to buy because she had seen it in Wester Drumlins in 2007. She shivered at the thought that while being pushed up against that wall by the Doctor, all the time, _she _had been the one to choose and perhaps eventually hang that paper.

_Time travel is just weird._

She bought several pairs of halfway-bearable trousers and jeans, a few tops, a couple of shift dresses, a coat and three pairs of shoes at a thrift shop. At a department store, she purchased several packages of pants and socks for herself and the Doctor, and also a brassiere, vowing to go out again the next day to search for a change of duds for him. She briefly wondered if he'd wear anything that wasn't pinstriped.

It was well near one o'clock by the time she made it back to the hotel. She rapped on the open window of their room, and the Doctor went around to the back door to let her in. He helped her with her bags, but asked, "Where have you been? It's nearly one."

"I couldn't go another day without knickers, and I wasn't going to come back without a marker and wallpaper," she protested, throwing her share of the bags on the bed as she entered the room. "So sorry if I didn't move fast enough for you."

"Sorry," he conceded, catching her tone. "It's just... I've got everything set, and I was counting on seeing you an hour ago. We have to get back to Wester Drumlins ASAP!"

"All right, just let me change."

As she got out of the chiffon and into decent underwear, denim hip-huggers, an orange and red striped v-neck top and boots, the Doctor told her the whole story. He told her about the angels closing in, seeing the sculpture, what the angels could do if they got their hands on the TARDIS in 2007, and he finished with what he'd done to solve the problem of holding the angels at bay long enough to write Sally's message on the wall. This part, he told her with a mighty, self-satisfied grin.

"You didn't," she scolded. "That's a bit mean."

"Nah, it's harmless, people have been doing it for ages. And it's funny!"

"Let's hope it's also effective," she sighed, grabbing her new coat and the bag from the hardware store, and following the Doctor out the door.


	4. The Girl

THE GIRL

Armed with a permanent marker, wallpaper and some glue, our heroes went underground once more to Canada Water station, and then made the jaunt over to Wester Drumlins. Once more, they entered the grounds of the old house from the back, but when they arrived, the scene was completely different. The garden was absolutely swarmed with people, seemingly from all walks of life. Children, adults, the elderly. Black, white, Asian. English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, Lingala-speaking. There must have been two hundred people milling about the grounds of Wester Drumlins.

And presiding over the crowd were, from the Doctor and Martha's vantage point, two stone angels, weeping and unmoving. The Doctor smiled at Martha, and she rolled her eyes in response. "I can't believe you did this."

"It's going to work, trust me."

They were blindsided by a nun, maybe fifty years old, and spongy. "Hello, Mr. Smith," she said.

_What is it with us and nuns?_ Martha asked herself.

"Hello, sister," the Doctor said, shaking her hand. "This is Martha, my er... wife."

"Hello, Martha," the kindly lady said. She smiled warmly at Martha, then said, "We have much to thank your husband for."

"So I've heard," Martha said to her, with barely-contained irritation.

She looked around the garden. People with rosaries around their hands were kneeling at the feet of the Weeping Angels, some of them praying silently, some sobbing openly. She saw a group kneeling similarly near the house, a priest standing by, preaching the Gospel of Matthew. She looked up at the house, and an angel stood in the window, looking down upon the prey that it could not yet access. The fourth angel was standing stoically near the opposite side of the grounds, near the sculpture. All around, people were taking photographs, praying, crying, preaching, trying to touch the angels.

"Hello sister," a woman said, sidling up to where the Doctor, Martha and the nun stood.

"Good afternoon, Madeline," the nun said. "I'm so glad to see you here."

Extracting a rosary from her pocket, the woman known as Madeline asked, "Now tell me, what exactly happened?"

"Well," the nun said, smiling brightly. "This is the man who brought us the news. John Smith, meet Madeline Pritchard."

The Doctor and Ms. Pritchard exchanged greetings.

"Mr. Smith told us that he was here, exploring this old house for a photography spread, and he witnessed the angels weeping. Not just hiding their faces, as you can see... right, Mr. Smith?"

The Doctor nodded emphatically. "That's right. I was up close with them and they were _actually_ weeping tears! Can you imagine that! Real tears!"

Madeline and the nun both crossed themselves. "Well it must be a sign from God, sister!"

"Indeed, Madeline."

Martha looked around once more. "Boy, news sure travels fast."

"Well, I felt it was my duty to inform the Diocese. The faithful are never out of touch with their parish. Will you please excuse me? I've just seen some parishioners whom I must greet." The little nun hurried away.

Martha shook her head in disbelief and stared at the Doctor. "Toying with people's deepest beliefs? For shame!"

He sighed, hands in pockets, rolling back on heels. "It's in the interest of saving the universe, all right? How else was I going to get two hundred people to come and stare at stone? Come on, let's get this done before this lot gets tired and goes home."

The two of them snuck into the house through a side entrance which was not covered by angels and/or their followers. They found the front parlour with its chandelier still intact, and its wall depressingly bare.

The Doctor extracted Sally Sparrow's narrative from his pocket and asked Martha to read to him exactly what he was supposed to write on the wall. It took all of perhaps five minutes, what with re-tracing to make the thin Sharpie lines legible. Then they set about adhering the wallpaper over the message. This message would be uncovered thirty-eight years from now, and the girl who finds it will set a course of events in motion that would bring them back to their time travel vehicle. Martha still had trouble getting her mind around the abstractness coupled with the concreteness of time travel and its cause-to-effect properties, but it was exciting all the same. She supposed that someday, she would understand how it all worked out, what with Sally's obsessively-assembled packet and the out-of-order fashion in which she and the Doctor had become privy to the information, but at the moment, it just made her brain hurt. At the moment, she would just stick to wallpapering.

When finished, both of them took a few steps backward to take stock of the job they had done. They stared at the blue paisley wall, and both sighed. Finally the Doctor asked, "Is it wrong that I'm aroused by this?"

"I was just thinking the same thing," she said, looking sideways at him, smiling impishly.

They might have taken this opportunity to get distracted again, but they heard the sound of children screeching, and both of their eyes were drawn to the folks outside, still milling about the Weeping Angels. Too dangerous here anyhow.

When they went back outside, it was over an hour later, and the crowd had thinned considerably. The Doctor wasn't surprised. It hadn't been a statue of the Virgin crying blood, just some run-of-the-mill stone angels and their run-of-the-mill tears. And it hadn't even been true. The impatient had largely left. Perhaps thirty people remained. The Doctor became nervous seeing how few people were actually looking at the statue near the figure-eight sculpture. He realised that as the crowd got smaller, the last few stragglers were in danger of being attacked by the angels. He expressed this fear to Martha.

"So what do we do?" she asked.

"Go outside the grounds and look back in through the trees. Try to get the best vantage point you can of the two angels on _this_ side of the house. Keep looking at them, try not to blink. I'll start trying to get people out of here, and I'll try to draw the other two into your line of sight as well. Give me the psychic paper."

Martha exited through the opening by the sculpture and settled herself between two medium-sized trees. She called out, "Okay," hoping the Doctor could hear.

He could. He began circulating to all the people nearby, flashing his fake badge. "All right folks, there's nothing to see here. I'm from the Agency Committed to Verifying Miracles, and this ain't no miracle, so please move along."

People began to sweep, little by little, off the grounds, tittering about the so-called miracle, complaining about being disgracefully herded like cattle. But as the Doctor, and most everyone else headed toward the exit of Wester Drumlins, Martha stole a clandestine glance at the second floor window. The angel that had been there, looking down, had gone. When she resumed looking at the two nearest, they had moved. Her heart was now in her throat. She had seen this before, but now that she knew what they could do, she found that she was terrified of them.

And then she heard voices.

Four girls came out from the opposite side of the house, apparently having never heard the Doctor or his plea that everyone should move along. They were, Martha guessed, of varying ages between ten and fourteen years old. The tallest girl and the shortest girl were black, the other two were white, one blonde, one ginger. They were giggling and making their way leisurely across the space, from the house, perhaps to the back gate, totally unaware of the danger.

The tallest girl exclaimed, "Oh, I do _love_ old things. I think this house is _beautiful_." She seemed passionate and emphatic. Her voice, it seemed, had just found its lower pitch and was shaping up to be a lovely, throaty rasp. "I just love everything about it. Especially of the angels."

"Don't tell me you believe in that stuff," the red-haired girl said.

"No, of course not," the tallest girl answered. "But it doesn't mean they're not lovely. They make me feel... melancholy."

"What does that mean?" the littlest girl asked.

"It means my little sister smells," the older answered, her passionate, velvety voice having crawled up a notch in order to ridicule her younger sibling.

"Shut up," the little one spat. "I'm going to tell mummy."

Suddenly, behind them, outside of their peripheral vision, an angel appeared from behind the house. It was clearly after them, but because it was suddenly being observed by Martha, it had stopped in its tracks. It was a strange phenomenon. Clearly, the thing had appeared, clearly it had to have moved. But Martha had never seen it move – suddenly, it was just _there._ She wanted to shout at the girls, and more than anything, she wanted to run around the fence and usher them hurriedly out of the line of fire, but she knew if she did that, she'd have to take her eyes off that angel, and that the girls wouldn't stand a chance. Instead, she stood patiently and stared at that particular angel, waiting for the girls to make their way off the grounds of Wester Drumlins.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor asked, coming up next to her. "We can leave now."

"There's a group of girls in there. There was an angel after them, but I'm going to stare at it until they leave."

"Okay," he said. "I'll help, just in case you blink." He settled in next to her, staring at the same angel.

When the girls were safely in the line of vision of others on the street, the Doctor and Martha quickly moved away from the grounds. The Doctor sensed something. Martha's gaze was straying into nowhere – she appeared contemplative.

"What's wrong?" he asked, waving a hand in front of her face.

She shuddered a bit and looked at him squarely. "Sorry, I guess I zoned out. It's just... there's something about that tallest girl."

"Like, something hypnotic?"

Martha thought. "Maybe," she said. "More like... never mind. Let's get some lunch."


	5. The Deal

**THIS IS A WEIRD CHAPTER. IT SEEMS KIND OF ALL-OVER-THE-PLACE. NO CHAPTER BREAKS WITHIN FELT RIGHT, SO... IT'S A HODGEPODGE. THINK OF LIKE A QUILT.**

* * *

THE DEAL

Lunch at a little tea room came next. Dumplings with a bit of chicken in gravy and a pot of Earl Grey. It was pretty awful food, much too English. Fortunately, the Doctor was not terribly picky about eating, so he didn't mind it too much, in spite of its cardboard-like properties.

Martha pushed her dumplings around the plate and seemed distracted in the extreme, but the Doctor did not need to ask why. He knew that something about the girl she had seen was still bothering her, and he thought perhaps, as long as they were here, he should look into it.

"What did she say, Martha?" he asked, out of the blue while she was sipping her tea.

"Erm," she said, blinking her eyes wildly, setting down her cup. "Nothing much. Just that she loved that old house, and then she insulted her sister."

"What did she look like?"

"I only saw her from a distance."

"Basically."

"She was a black girl. Pretty. She had a nice voice, but nothing particularly unique stood out about her."

"Okay. What age?"

Martha thought. "Maybe fourteen? I'm not a very good judge of that."

"Hmm," he contemplated, sipping his own tea now.

"What?"

"Well, if she gave you a vibe, then... I've dealt with this alien species before, the Isolus, whose pod crashed here and a juvenile individual possessed a young girl, twelve years old. I mean, the behaviour sounds totally different, but that girl had something. She was inexplicable somehow."

"When was that?"

"It was 2012, but all the same. Could just be a similar phenomenon, your girl possessed by a different alien. But if she's hanging about Wester Drumlins, then maybe it's worth looking into. We don't need anything interfering."

"You're probably right, as usual," she conceded. "I'm going to the ladies'."

As she walked away, he watched her. He imagined Captain Jack sitting here right now telling him that watching a woman simply walk to the bathroom is a sure sign of being in love. Bollocks. He did not need Jack, or anyone else to tell him how he felt. He knew what the signs were, in his own hearts. Watching Martha walk away was just fun, purely enjoyment. There was a lot to admire there.

As she stepped out of sight, a man came into the tea room. He sat down with a woman across the dining area, carrying bundle of flowers, wishing her a Happy Valentine's Day. She squeaked with happiness, and both of them got to their feet and hugged. The Doctor smiled at this display, having been reminded of the special lovers' day that fell today. Yes, they were out of their element, and yes, they had just had a romantic dinner, it could be said, the night before, but did that give him the right to ignore Valentine's Day? He was someone's (God help him) boyfriend now, and he needed to pay attention.

When Martha came back to the table, she eyed the flowers across the room. "Aww, that's sweet! Oh, that's right, it's Valentine's!" she commented, though the Doctor did not detect any _hinting_ in her tone. She was just taken with the gesture, and felt that the man was being nice.

"Would you like to do something special tonight?" he asked her.

She sighed and smiled at the Doctor. "You're sweet too. But it's not necessary."

"Are you sure? It's a good night for lovers," he reminded, taking her hand.

"But we just had our big date. I don't want to cheapen it."

He chuckled. Then, he reached into his breast pocket and took out a pad of paper and a little pen. "I'll tell you what..." he said, scribbling some words down. "There! Happy Valentine's Day!" He ripped the top sheet from the pad with flourish and handed it to her.

She read it out loud. _"IOU one Valentine's celebration. This coupon is to be held for a time when you really, really need it."_ She looked up at him. "Nice! Thank you." She leaned across the table and kissed him.

"You're welcome. Now let's talk again about your girl."

* * *

One week later, and Martha had still been unable to describe her feelings toward this girl as anything other than "strange" or perhaps _déjà vu_. The Doctor had seen the girl, but had noticed absolutely nothing uncommon about her, had felt no vibe, had gotten no radiation or feeling of any kind as a result of her. Whatever this was, it was focusing on Martha.

They had moved into a by-the-week boarding house on what they hoped was only a semi-permanent basis. Of course, they'd had to pretend to be married, and even then, not every house would allow a biracial couple to stay in their midst. Back in Soho, they found a place run by a Jewish man and his Muslim wife. They were, to say the least, sympathetic to "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" as a couple, so long as they swore they were married.

The little flat came furnished (and then some, with random junk in varying degrees of usefulness crowding the cupboards), and there was a tiny parlour, a tiny kitchenette and a tiny bedroom with a tiny little bath. Within the week, the Doctor had been hired as an actuary, and sacked already, ironically, for not having respect for the constraints of time. Martha had lectured him about being late, leaving early and the like, insisting that if he was going to live in this world right now, he needed to participate in it. But she also knew that his brain and bodily impulses did not necessarily work the way others' did. If he got a bee in his bonnet about the mysterious girl at Wester Drumlins, about the sequence of Sally's instructions, or, say, the sticky residue left on drywall by a housefly, he felt that it was important to pursue it.

For her part, she got a job in a shop. It was a self-serving move, but she decided to work in a clothing store. She thought it might be nice to have a bit of a discount on what she still felt were "retro" clothing items. Also, she had worked in a clothing store while she was attending university, so she had a few years' experience, and if the Doctor was going to act like a flake, then she needed to be certain to hold down this job.

Seven days on, it was a Friday, and Martha was just finishing up pouring the hot spaghetti into a metal colander in the sink, when the Doctor came in. He smiled at her in her oven mitts, her hair pulled back, the table set for two. He hung his long coat up, and said, cheekily, "Hi honey, I'm home."

She giggled. "How was your day, dear?"

"Didn't get the Peterson account," he quipped, kissing the top of her head.

"Seriously, how was your day?" she asked.

"I didn't see her today," he told her. "I wish I could set up a device to detect her energy signature or something, so we'd know when she was there. I could do it, I have the sonic. Except I'd need a DNA sample from her."

"Er... you're not thinking of actually trying to do that are you?"

"No, I think that might actually be crossing the line a bit," he assured her. "Not to mention counterproductive. If I could find her for that, then I wouldn't need to build a device."

"Very true. How are we doing on the camera?"

"I found a man who might let us borrow one," he answered. "I asked him the price, and he was evasive about it, but I think it's worth a go."

"How did you find him?"

"He ran an ad. He does home camera and entertainment services, whatever that means. So I rang him up."

She closed her eyes. "Now tell me again how this works."

"I take that transcript from Sally's packet and record it. Eventually, we're supposed to run into a bloke named Billy who'll get zapped back here from 2007. We give him the recording, along with a list of the seventeen DVD's. Years from now, he's supposed to go into video and DVD production and insert the recording as an Easter Egg intended for Sally Sparrow. That's how she will get all of her information about the angels, about me, about how the timey-wimey stuff works..."

"Timey-wimey?"

"Yeah," he said, sitting down absently. "I'm supposed to say that on the recording."

"Okay," she answered, scooping spaghetti onto two plates. "So how long before we meet Billy?"

"Well, that's the problem. There's nothing in the packet about where or when he turns up. Wish I could build a signature detector for him too. I suppose I could try to track down one of his family members – I do have his surname, his family's Nigerian..."

"Gee, it's too bad you can't just build something that detects, like, time-travelling energy," Martha mused, now spooning red sauce. "I don't know, maybe the angels leave like a trace signature on people when they transport them like that. Doesn't seem likely that people could just get zapped without carrying something of the angels with them."

The Doctor stared at her, mouth open, brow furrowed.

When he hadn't spoken for thirty seconds, she looked up. "What?"

"I feel like a moron."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't think of that. You're a bloody genius, you know that? All I need is a... well, a Timey-Wimey Detector. _Of course_ the angels leave a trace of temporal goo on people – that's time travel without a craft for you."

* * *

The next day was a Saturday, and the two of them went to seek the man with the camera. The workspace he used was accessible by a back alley. Martha instinctively reached out to take the Doctor's hand as they stepped through the doorway. The place seemed exceedingly seedy. Orange walls, peeling at the corners with a maitre d' booth up front, broken in two places and repaired with duct tape. Several doorways surrounded them, a few covered by flowered curtains, some by accordion-style Formica sliding doors. Jefferson Airplane blared from someplace and the air was absolutely filled with marijuana smoke.

"Well, at least we'll be relaxed while we're here," the Doctor mumbled, looking about with a bit of concern.

Martha was pulling a face. "Let's just do what we have to do and get out of here as soon as we can."

"I hear that."

She heard a noise on her right, a large metallic crash. On impulse, she threw back the curtain of the room from which the sound seemed to be coming. The room was dressed up like a parlour – flowered sofa and coffee table with a large, ugly landscape painting on the wall behind it. Fake curtains to denote a fake window and a mini café table with some plastic fruit in a bowl.

And with all of this, an ironing board lay flat on the floor, its metal legs having given way underneath. A woman was on the floor as well, and she seemed to be doing the splits, one leg slung over the ironing board. She was wearing an apron and high heels, and that's all. A group of men were helping her to her feet, another group of men were fiddling with a camera, while another, very hairy man stood by in a delivery uniform. Well, a delivery shirt, shoes and cap, anyway. His trousers seemed to have mysteriously disappeared, but his unnaturally large, erect penis was bobbing in front of him. He had his hands on his hips and he seemed exasperated.

"You know, you'd think you'd spring for some decent props," he was saying. "If I'm going to bang her while she's ironing, you know that there's going to be some weight put on the ironing board."

The woman was wincing in pain as the men set her in a chair. Finally, the delivery man's gaze trained in on Martha. With the unabashed exasperation matching that of a moment ago, he asked, "May we help you?"

"No no, I just was wondering what that crash was. Now I know. I'll go. Sorry." She ducked back out of the room.

The Doctor asked, _sotto voce,_ "Is it what I think it is?"

"Only if you think they're making porn."

"Mm-hm," he said, his eyes having gone uneven. "No wonder they were so vague about the price."

Just then, a sweat-soaked, heavy-set man came out of one of the rooms.

"Hi," the Doctor said in a sprightly, friendly voice. "Are you Donovan?"

"Who wants to know?"

The Doctor stepped forward and grabbed the man's hand (though he immediately regretted it) to shake. "John Smith, remember? We spoke on the phone."

"Oh right, the bloke who wants to _borrow_ one of our cameras," Donovan answered.

"Yeah, so... where do we stand on that, exactly?"

The man looked him over, and then he looked Martha over. As if Martha were deaf, Donovan said to the Doctor, "She's... exotic. Where's she from?"

"I'm from London, thanks, what's it to you?" she snapped, self-consciously.

He ignored her and again addressed the Doctor, crooking an eyebrow lasciviously. "Frisky."

The frown on the Doctor's face now would have made a small child cry. "You haven't answered my question," he growled, teeth clenched. "Where. Do. We. Stand?"

Donovan crossed his arms and sighed. Again he looked the couple up and down, and said, "There could be a market for this."

"Indeed," said the Doctor.

"Right then. You give me twenty solid minutes of the two of you and I'll give you an extra reel to do with what you like."

"Done," the Doctor said.


	6. The Device

**WE'RE TAKING A BREAK FROM THE STORY OF THE MYSTERIOUS GIRL. WE'LL COME BACK TO HER, I PROMISE!**

* * *

THE DEVICE

The Doctor negotiated that they should be able to shoot the film themselves, that there would be no crew and no director telling them to grunt more or putting nasty (but encouraging) things on the autocue demanding that Martha say them. They were not to be interrupted, or the whole deal was off.

"One thing, though," Donovan said, his finger in the air. "It ain't no good without the money shot, you got it?"

"Money shot, what's that?" asked the Doctor.

"Ugh," Martha groaned. "I'll explain it to you. Just come on." She grabbed his arm and dragged him into a room that she could tell was empty. It had pukey yellowish walls, and the room had been dressed to look like an office. A fern, a big desk, a couple of filing cabinets, a telephone... and of course, that all-important porn staple, the sofa. The camera was on wheels, and the Doctor carried two empty reels of film.

"Okay, I have an idea," Martha said irritatedly. "How about you be the secretary and I'll be the boss. That'll get their attention. Or better yet, I'm the bloody Prime Minister and you're the..."

"Martha, we're not really going to do this," he said. "Do you really think I'd volunteer you for porn without consulting you?"

She exhaled loudly. "Oh, thank God. I thought you'd lost your mind."

"I mean, we can if you want."

"Er, I'd really prefer to do that at the home office. And not on film, thanks."

"It's a date then," he said, laughing.

"How magical."

They sat in the room, trying very hard not to touch anything, first feeding Sally's script into the autocue, and then filming the Doctor's half of the conversation. From beginning to end, it took them thirty minutes. Then, they gave a blank reel to Donovan, letting him assume their sexy office romp was contained thereupon, then took the reel they needed and made to depart.

On the way out, they spied a girl sitting in a chair near the door. She was an attractive brunette, around twenty years old, seemed quite tall, and was most definitely terrified. Something in her eyes caused the Doctor's hearts to break, and he and Martha stopped.

"Hi there," he said, gently. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"And how do you feel about that?"

"Bloody fantastic, thanks."

"I can see that. And _why_ are you here if you're so pissed off about it?"

"I, like everyone else who comes into this place, am out of options. I don't know how to do anything else... and it's not _quite_ prostitution, is it?"

All three of them were quiet for a bit, and then the Doctor said, "We're on our way out to lunch. Would you like to join us?"

"What?"

"Lunch. Instead of this. What do you say?"

"Why?"

"I just think you need a friend. Or two, as the case may be. I'm the Doctor, this is Martha. Don't worry, we're safe. We don't do porn."

The girl opened her mouth to protest that they might be pimps or drug dealers or second-hand car salesmen, but then Donovan came out of one of the rooms again. "Are you two still here?" he asked. As the Doctor turned to answer, he spotted the girl on the chair. "Ah, there you are, my girl. Come here."

She stood stiffly and walked slowly toward Donavan. He circled around her, muttering things like, "Oh yeah, you'll do just fine... juuuuust fiiiine." Then he slapped her on the bum and told her she'd be in room two, banging the Hoffman twins, and that she should take off her knickers and wait in the room. "Oh, and by the way, I hope you know how to deep throat for the camera."

When Donavan left, she turned to the Doctor and Martha and said, "Lunch? Really?"

"Absolutely," the Doctor replied, taking her arm hastily.

The three of them trotted out the door together. "Thanks you two. I'm Sally, by the way," she said. "Sally Pfitzinger."

"Really?" Martha said cheerfully. "We have a friend named Sally. Sally Sparrow, she's called."

"Wait, did you say Pfitzinger?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes, I did, why?"

"Are you related to Morton Pfitzinger, the publishing magnate?"

She sighed. "He's my father. He's cut me off. That's why I was... you know." She indicated the door of the seedy building they had just left.

"Why has he cut you off?" Martha wanted to know.

"Because I didn't want to go into publishing like him," she answered. "I wanted to be an actress, but you can see where that got me."

"Why don't you want to be in publishing? It sounds interesting to me," Martha offered.

"I may have to now," Sally said. "But Daddy's getting into movie and television production these days as well. They're predicting that in the next decade, movies and telly will be published just like books, only in a portable audio format, and he wants to get in while there's still so much to learn."

"Well, if you like show business..." Martha said.

"I suppose," Sally sighed. "By the way, er... I don't have any money."

"Don't worry, lunch is on us," the Doctor assured her, putting his hand on the shoulder of a new friend.

* * *

"_19 November, 2007_

"_When I went to deliver Kathy's message to her brother, Larry's coworker was watching a film. He was yelling at it, 'Go to the police, you stupid woman! Why does no one just go to the police?' I realised he was absolutely right. I was out of my depth, so I went to the police. _

"_That's where I ment DI Billy Shipton, an attractive black man, perhaps thirty years old with a Nigerian accent. He had been investigating Wester Drumlins disappearances and he showed me the great collection of cars that had been found parked outside the house, with their owners seeming to have disappeared off the face of the planet. He also showed me the blue police box that had been found there, as well. He had no answers for me, and this meeting only posed more questions. In all of this, he chatted me up for a date, and I gave him my mobile number. A minute or two after I left, I came back because I remembered something I wanted to give him. I went back to the parking garage to find Billy, but I couldn't see him, and the police box was gone. Instead, my mobile phone rang. It was Billy, clearly, but he sounded different. He told me to come find him at a hospice._

"_I went, and there was a man who very closely resembled Billy, except he was, I guessed, closer to seventy years old. As with the Kathy incident, I resisted the possibility that he was, in fact, the Billy Shipton I had just met, but he swore to it. He used the same words as Kathy; that he'd taken one breath in 2007, and the next in 1969. He was sick and alone now, and I resigned myself to the strangeness of it. He told me about his wife, coincidentally also called Sally. He confessed that he'd often thought about looking for me before tonight, but that a man who called himself The Doctor warned him that it would tear a hole in the fabric of space and time. This was the first time I heard the Doctor's name._

"_He gave me a message from the Doctor, quite simply: Look at the list. I took the list of DVD's which carry the Easter Egg from my pocket, the one Larry had given me. He confessed that he'd ceased to be a police officer in 1969, but instead went into publishing, then video publishing, and then DVD's. I surmised correctly that he had planted the Easter Egg I had seen at Larry's home and shop. He did not tell me what the seventeen DVD's had in common, but later, I worked out that they were the exact seventeen which I own. For the first time, and not for the last, I wondered how the Doctor could know that I had that list. Billy told me that someday I would understand, but that the Doctor had said he, Billy, never would._

"_And the eeriest part of Billy Shipton's story ends here. The Doctor told him all those years ago that the night when he and I met for the second time would be evening of Billy's death. He said he had until the rain stopped. And I agreed to stay with him. I held his hand as he went to sleep for the last time ever, and then they took him away. I sat numbly at the window for another hour, and contemplated my life._

"_I cannot write anymore. I'm finding it too painful. I shall continue tomorrow."_

Martha sat at their little flat later on, reading Sally's narrative regarding Billy Shipton. She was aghast, still, by this whole thing, by the timey-wimeyness of it.

But the good news was that the film reel was done. Now all they had to do was find the man who could plant it.

"Oh my God," she exclaimed suddenly. "Sally Pfitzinger and Billy Shipton! Her father!"

"Hm," he shrugged, looking up from his noisy task. "I guess we'll have to introduce them."

That night, the Doctor had begun raiding the kitchen, making an ungodly racket while Martha was reading.

"What are you doing?" she asked, finally

"I'm trying to find an appropriate mechanical anchor for my Timey-Wimey Detector. Hopefully something with a lot of moving parts, but something that we don't need that badly."

She shrugged and put Sally's narrative aside. She came over to the counter and leaned over. "Need any help?" she asked. His rooting around in the cabinet on the floor reminded her of all the times he'd had his head in the grate of the TARDIS floor.

He stopped for a moment and looked at her. "Check and see if there are any wind-up toys around. Look in that giant box in the storage cupboard."

She went, and soon, she looked just like he did, squatting on the floor, her head inside a door searching for stuff. "Aagh! No way!" he heard her cry out from across the flat.

"What?" he called back. She came and stood over the counter once more. "Did you find a toy?"

"No, but please tell me this isn't what I think it is," she growled, holding up what she'd found.

He looked. "It's not what you think it is. It's a projector, not a camera... _it's a projector!_ Where did you find that?"

"In the storage cupboard, like you said," she told him. "Is it significant?"

"Yes, it's even better than a wind-up toy. Give it to me."

She handed it to him, and right there on the counter, he began performing surgery on the bulky machine. He extracted the moving metal gears that feed the film through the device, including the wires that stick out of it to power it. He borrowed one of the arms and the film reel that happened to be on it. He took the broken wires and twisted them together, sonicked them, and then extracted a large roll of electrical tape seemingly from nowhere. He tied off the wires and set aside all the pieces he needed. He put the rest of the projector back together, then handed it to Martha to put away.

"I can't put it back," she protested. "It's never going to work now!"

"No one has to know that. Do you want to wind up paying for it when we move out?"

"I thought we'd be time-jumping in the TARDIS when we left here," she said, crossing her arms obstinately.

"Oh, just put it back, will you?"

She sighed, but did as he asked. "What else can I do for you, Doctor?" she asked, just a hint of sarcasm creeping into her voice.

"Have we got an ironing board?" he asked, putting on his glasses, preparing to fuse another bundle of wires over the previous bundle. He smirked at her naughtily.

She pushed him playfully sideways. "Cheeky!" she exclaimed.

"Check out that red thing in the cupboard there. Do we need it?"

She extracted a red box that looked very much like a lunchbox. "Erm," she said, looking it over. "I wouldn't think so. It boils an egg."

He looked up over his glasses' rims. "What, people in this decade don't know how to use a pan of boiling water?"

"Well, according to the label, it works in half the time with less mess," she said cheerfully. "I think we can do without it."

"Good, can I have it?"

She handed it to him, and once again, he began to dissect it. He examined all of the parts, and in the end, he left only a green circular thing. He sonicked it, holding the two devices together longer than Martha usually saw him do. Suddenly, they heard a _pop_ come from the refrigerator.

Martha opened the door. Some of the eggs inside had exploded. She laughed. "I think it works."

"Whoa," he said. "This green thing is the actual heating device. It is sensitive to temperature so you don't overcook your egg. I meant to tune it up so it would be sensitive to time energy, since the sonic still carries traces of the TARDIS' energy signature. I guess I ramped up its egg-cooking properties as well!"

For the next several hours, the Doctor worked on the device. It turned out, the projector parts acted as a kind of physical propulsion as friction power so that the device would work without being plugged in. The green thing inside was the actual timey-wimey-sensitive component. Next, he put the kitchen timer on top so that the device would make noise when it detected something, and a stray blue Christmas bulb, which performed the same function (except with light). Finally, he added the telephone receiver, the copper wires of which he fused to the green detector. It gave out an audio pulse that would indicate the closeness of the timey-wimey material.

"How far away will this work?"

"Up to one hundred miles," he mumbled. "Drained the sonic of all its trace time energy from the TARDIS. Let's hope we don't need to do anything like this again."

* * *

As always, the Doctor's timing had been impeccable, even if no one else's was. If he had waited one more night to build the Timey-Wimey Detector, they may well have missed Billy Shipton's entrance into 1969 and made their lives so much more difficult for having to chase after him. But, though being interrupted in one's lovemaking by a kitchen timer and a blue light on an egg boiling time-energy detector was a bit less alarming than by psychopathic stone statues, it still wasn't the ideal situation.

Luckily the Doctor's knowledge of all things timey-wimey saved them again.

"Don't stop," he panted, looking up at her as she writhed. "He'll still have temporal goo on him when we're finished."

"Don't say _goo_ while we're doing this," she panted back. "It's a bit of a turn-off."

In lieu of a concession, he said, "Mmm," He closed his eyes, allowing the moment to take him.

His arms were up over his head, crooked at the elbow. Martha leaned forward and put her hands on his forearms. He opened his eyes once more, and she stared into them, their noses less than an inch apart. With a few expert movements, she brought them both to the brink, making his voice crackle with strain. One last thrust and they both went over the top, he in a bottle-rocket explosion, she with a lithe liquid slide.

She collapsed forward, her mouth just a couple of centimetres from his ear. "I love you," she whispered breathlessly. "Shouldn't we go?"

"I love you too," he responded, chest heaving up and down. "And yes."

They threw on some clothes and struck out into the night, stopping only to phone Sally Pfitzinger. The Doctor was listening for traces of timey-wimey through the receiver, and Martha following.


	7. The Meeting

**TO THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS STORY, I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW: FFN HAS BEEN HAVING UPDATE TROUBLE OR SOMETHING. AS YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED, NO REVIEWS HAVE GONE UP SINCE CHAPTER 3. I'M NOT REMOVING THEM OR ANYTHING. JUST KNOW THAT I AM RECEIVING YOUR REVIEWS VIA E-MAIL, SO PLEASE CONTINUE TO SEND THEM BECAUSE THEY MEAN A LOT TO ME! AND THANKS.**

**NOW BACK TO OUR SHOW. I DECIDED NOT TO RE-HASH THE SCENE WERE THE DOCTOR AND MARTHA USE THE TIMEY-WIMEY DETECTOR TO FIND BILLY. LET'S JUST ASSUME IT HAPPENED, AND NOW WE CAN MOVE ON.**

* * *

THE MEETING

"Four coffees, please," the Doctor called out, entering Irving's All-Nighter. "And maybe some chips. Have you got muffins? I quite fancy a muffin."

The server nodded as the Doctor, Martha and Billy Shipton sat down in the garishly-lit diner upon aquamarine vinyl seats. They were the only customers in, save for an old man in the corner nursing a pot of tea. Billy still looked dazed, his eyes were bloodshot and he was regarding Martha and the Doctor with some suspicion.

"Are we expecting someone else?" he asked Martha, crossing his arms.

"Yes, there's someone we want you to meet," she replied. "Look, there's no need to be suspicious. We're here to help you – fill you in on what's happened to you. And in return, you can help us."

"Why would I do that?" he asked, his accent thickening with his nervousness.

"Because we're _sooo_ nice," the Doctor told him. "Really, how do you feel?"

The server brought the hot coffees, cold chips and the stale muffin, and Billy took a voracious slurp. He made a face.

"Rubbish," Billy said.

"You feel like rubbish, or the coffee's rubbish?" asked Martha. "Because I have to tell you, I really miss Starbucks."

"Both," Billy answered, but then what Martha had said seemed to register. "I thought you said this was 1969."

"It is," she said. "But I was born in 1984. I was studying to be a doctor in 2007."

"And you got touched by the angels?"

"Well, no, I was touched by the Doctor," she said, smiling up at the tall man in pinstripes. "Only figuratively, at first. But then after we'd travelled together for a while, we went home to get a few things and got caught up at Wester Drumlins, and _then_ touched by an angel."

"Wester Drumlins," he mused. "I've been..."

"Investigating it, we know," said the Doctor. "But it seems as though the angels touched you at the police station, yeah?"

"Those statues?"

"Yep, _those_ statues."

"They were surrounding the blue police box after Sally left, and then..."

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other. They both knew that the angels would eventually come into possession of the TARDIS, but it still gave them the chills to hear it.

"Sally Sparrow," the Doctor sighed. "Clever, clever girl. We'd be lost without her."

"How do you know Sally Sparrow?"

"We don't, really. We're just familiar with her work. Which brings me to my mission."

"You said you had a message for Sally," Billy said flatly. "How is that possible?"

"You will see her one more time," the Doctor said. "And _only _once more. You'll meet her again about thirty minutes after you _first _met her, in 2007. That's the night when you die."

"The night when I what?"

"Die."

"Is she going to kill me?"

"No, of course not. It's just a coincidence. That will be thirty-eight years from now, of course, and you'll be much older and... well, ill."

"Ill? With what?"

"Don't know. The point is, do you still have her mobile phone number in your pocket?"

Billy checked. "Yeah, it's right here."

"Guard that with your life. Do not lose it. Do you know the date and time of when you were zapped by the angel?"

"I'd knocked off early... I guess it was maybe a little after four o'clock on 14th September."

"All right, then at half-past four on that day in 2007, you'll call her. But not before, do you understand? Not one minute before. It could cause a paradox that would rip a hole in the fabric of space and time."

Billy looked at Martha. "Is he for real?"

"Totally," she answered.

"Seriously," the Doctor said. "Crossing timelines like that could destroy two-thirds of the universe as we know it."

"Who _are_ you?" Billy asked.

The Doctor sighed. "I'm a time traveller. My transport got left behind in 2007 when the angels got us. The message that you're going to bring to Sally will help us get it back."

"You expect me to twiddle my thumbs for the next thirty-eight years waiting to phone Sally Sparrow so you can get your time machine back?"

"Not twiddle your thumbs for thirty-eight years," the Doctor said. "_Spend_ thirty-eight years planting clues. Which is why I'm giving you these."

He pushed three items across the table toward Billy: a film canister, a sheet of paper and a miniature silver disc. "What are these?"

"These are your message. I'm sorry, but you can't continue being a police officer now, Billy."

"What? Now you want me to change careers for you?"

"It's fairly likely that you'll be met with resistance just for being black anyway," Martha said. "Trust me."

"I need you, eventually, to get into DVD publishing," the Doctor explained. "Do you know what a DVD Easter Egg is?"

"Yes."

"Well, I need you to implant this film onto seventeen different DVDs as an Easter Egg. And here's the list of DVDs. Don't stray from that list, and especially don't come up short. We need to cover them all. But they're not all from the same publishers, so you'll need to make some friends in other companies. Don't tell the manufacturers or the distributors, just let it be found on its own. And when you see Sally Sparrow, on 14 September, 2007, you'll tell her, _look at the list_. She'll have a copy of it by then."

"This is insane," Billy said, touching the film canister and looking at the list. "What's on the film?"

"It's some information that Sally Sparrow needs."

"Can I watch it?"

"You can, but it won't make much sense to you."

Billy was half-offended by this remark, but he said nothing. Then he touched the mini-disc. "What's this?"

"That," the Doctor said. "Contains a digital signal harvested from my time machine, which I prepared before we got stuck here. Once it gets near the circuitry of the machine, they will be able to detect each other, and my machine will come back to me. I'll need you to embed that signal on the DVDs just underneath the audiovisual material."

"I don't know anything about how to do that," Billy protested. "I'm a cop, not an engineer."

"Well, then it's a good thing DVDs won't be invented for another thirty years. Plenty of time to learn the ropes, eh?" the Doctor said.

"I don't get it," Billy said. "How do you know all this? How did you know I'd be here? How do you know that I know Sally Sparrow? How do you know what information she's going to need? How do you know that she will have the list at that particular moment?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, it wouldn't be sporting. Someday it'll all fall into place for Sally, but probably not for you, I'm sorry. You just have to trust me."

The little bell on the front door of the diner went _clink_. Sally Pfitzinger walked in.

"Hi!" Martha said. "So glad you could make it – sorry to phone you so late. Have a seat."

Sally took a seat next to Billy and looked at him with a mixture of question and utter enchantment.

"Sally Pfitzinger, this is Billy Shipton," Martha said. "We especially wanted the two of you to meet."

"Why?" asked Sally, smiling.

"We thought you could both use a friend," the Doctor said, winking.

* * *

After a long chat, two baskets of chips and enough coffee to float an aircraft carrier, the four of them left the diner. By then, it was nearly five in the morning. Sally had announced that thanks to the Doctor and Martha, she had decided to make amends with her father and offer to work for him doing field research on home video production. She wanted to get some sleep before seeing him at ten a.m., so after giving Billy her phone number, she left them. The Doctor offered to walk her to the Underground, and she accepted.

Martha and Billy stood outside the diner waiting for the Doctor to return.

"So what is the deal with you and him?" he asked.

"What do you mean? Yes, we are a couple, if that's what you wanted to know."

"Well, there's that, but... he says he's a time traveller. And you travel with him?

"Yes. We visit different planets and different time periods, almost always meet with danger. It's brilliant."

"You risk your life," he said. It wasn't a question.

"It's worth it," she assured him.

"It's worth it, just to be with him?"

She smiled. "Yes. Just to be with him."

"You would die for him?"

"And he for me. That's who he is – he's noble and inspiring. That's just the Doctor."

Billy was silent for a minute, staring down the street. Martha wondered if he was taking in the different appearance of London, without the Starbucks and cash machines on every corner. Finally, he said, "Not to me."

"Not to you what?"

"He is not inspiring to me," Billy said. "He just walked into my life a couple of hours ago, and he wants me to devote the rest of my life to helping him. I don't know why I should do that, frankly. What if he's a total crackpot?"

Martha sighed. "Billy look at me." He did. "Do I look like a crackpot?"

"No, you don't."

"Do you trust that I'm from the same time and place as you?"

"You seem to be."

"Do you like me?"

"You seem all right."

"Then listen," she said, her voice breaking, tears beginning to fall. "Even if you don't like the Doctor, there's still me. If he and I do not get our time machine back, then I will never see my family again. I'll never get to have another drink with my sister, I won't hug my brother or my little niece ever again. I won't ever have a family dinner again, I won't see my mum or dad, I won't..." she couldn't go on. She placed her fingers over her nose with embarrassment and tried to stop the tears from coming any further.

Billy watched her with concern. "I hear you," he said. "I'm sad for you. But I won't have any of that ever again either," he pointed out.

"I know," she said, sniffling. "And I'm sorry."

He contemplated. "Could you take me back to 2007 when you get your time machine back? I'll give Sally the message then."

"We can't get it back unless you live out the next thirty-eight years to plant the Easter Egg," Martha insisted. "It's all cause and effect. Time travel is strange that way. It would probably cause a paradox or something. Billy, you may not trust the Doctor, but I do. I love him, and I trust him with my life. And I know that the universe is a better place with him in it – we need him mobile, Billy, to be able to go where he's needed... God, I wish I could make you understand. Do you know how many times he's saved your life?"

"Is he even human?" Billy asked.

The question surprised Martha, but she answered truthfully. "No, he's not."

"He's an alien?"

"Yes, he is."

He smiled impishly. "And you sleep with him?"

She chuckled. "Yes, I do."

"Are all the bits and bobs in the same places?"

"Far as I can tell."

He was silent again for a long while. He took the film reel from his pocket and stared at it, then put it back again. He looked at the DVD list, then put it back again. "All right. But I'll only do it so that you can get back to your family, Martha. I don't care about any paradoxes or what-have-you. I'll do it for _you_."

"Thank you, Billy. You are a very good man."

The Doctor came around the corner then, as if on cue.

"So, Doctor," Billy said loudly. "You still haven't explained what happened to me."

"Let's take a little walk," the Doctor suggested.

* * *

Within twenty minutes, they found themselves standing outside the garden of Wester Drumlins in the early morning light. "Why have you brought me here?" Billy asked.

"Tell me about your investigation, Billy."

"Okay. About two years ago – well, in 2005 – someone reported their loved one missing. Said he'd gone to Wester Drumlins house to do some artwork and never came home. Routine missing person investigation, we went to the house, found the man's car, and three others as well, all with the owners reported missing. Other reports came in slowly from the same place over the next year – it's a popular place for artists – until we had a total of ten cars and that police box. That's when we decided to launch a full-scale investigation into the house itself. We've sent in teams, but no-one has ever found anything unusual about it, other than it being in total disrepair."

"Well, investigate no more, Billy," said the Doctor. "Meet the Weeping Angels. Again." He parted some of the foliage and invited Billy to look through the bars.

"Those are the statues I saw."

"As I told you, they zap you back into the past and feed on all the days you never had. But they can only move when no one is looking, but if you turn your back or look away, they come for you."

"All I did was blink," Billy said, pulling himself away from the bars.

"That's all it takes," the Doctor said. "They move at incredible speeds when they want to."

"Where are they from?" asked Billy.

"Good question," said the Doctor in a high-pitch. "No one knows, really. They're old old old, and their presence spans the universe, but no one knows where they originated."

"What's that noise?" Martha asked, standing on tiptoe, trying to see past the trees.

"I heard a crash," the Doctor said, looking toward the house. And then, they all heard the panicked screams of children. The three of them rushed to the gate and flew toward the mansion. "You go that way, I'll try to keep the angels away!" the Doctor instructed.

"Be careful, Doctor!" Martha cried out.

"It's okay, I've got the sonic!"

Martha and Billy went through the front door of the house and followed the screams. When they reached what was left of the kitchen, they saw a pair of very small brown legs dangling from the ceiling. The little girl was hanging from a rotting beam while three of her friends kneeled up above and looked down, screaming through the hole she'd made as she fell. They were the same four girls Martha had seen skulking about the house last week.

Billy rushed forward and grabbed the girl's legs. "It's okay, I've got you, I've got you!"

"No! Don't touch me!" the girl screamed, kicking him away.

Her friends above continued to yell various, unintelligble things.

"Let me!" Martha said, shoving Billy aside. She followed suit and grabbed the girl's legs as he had, except this time, the girl calmed, and let go of the beam. She slid down into Martha's arms. "Hello," Martha said, setting her down.

"Er, thanks," the little girl said shyly.

"My name is Martha, what's yours?"

"Letitia," the girl told her.

"Ah!" Martha exclaimed. "That's my sister's name!"

The loud thuds of feet plodding down the stairs reached their ears. The three other girls came crashing into the kitchen, knocking Billy off balance, amid gasps of "OhmygodTishareyouokay?" The older girls crowded around her stiflingly, shining a torch light into her eyes and making her recoil a bit.

"Okay, okay! Leave her alone, give her some air!" Martha insisted. "Step back, please, I'm a doctor. Let me make sure she's not hurt."

She lifted the little girl up onto the kitchen counter. She asked one of the other girls to borrow a torch, and examined the few cuts and bruises little Letitia had sustained as she'd come through the floor. Her hands were full of splinters and she was bleeding mildly in a few places, but she didn't have concussion and she didn't seem to be in shock. Martha was satisfied.

She turned to the tall girl who had so captivated her before. "Are you her sister?"

"Yes," the tall girl answered. There was _still_ something about her.

"Take her home. Tell your mum and dad that they need to soak her hands in a couple quarts of warm water and a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol for at least an hour. Most of the splinters should come out in the soak, and the rest will be easily removed with tweezers. She probably won't even feel it."

"Er, can't you just fix her?" asked the blonde girl.

"No, I can't," Martha said. "I don't have any supplies. She'll be fine if you can just take her home and soak her hands. And clean up those cuts."

"But.." the oldest girl protested.

Martha put one hand on her hip. "Let me guess. If you take her home looking like this, your parents will ask what's happened, and you're not supposed to be here."

The girls didn't answer, but their silence spoke volumes.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Martha asked.

The tall girl sighed. "I like old things, okay?"

"So go to an antiques shop! You're much less likely to have someone fall through the floor there!"

"But that's not _authentic_," the girl protested.

The redhead rolled her eyes. "She says that her collection has to be genuine, scavenged and earned. She comes here every day to steal something for her shelf."

"Shut up!" the tall girl told her friend, slapping her hand a bit.

Martha looked at the redhead. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Alice," she answered.

"Alice what?"

"Alice McCluskey."

"How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"What about you?" Martha asked the blonde.

"Me? I'm Bonnie McCluskey. I'm twelve."

Martha looked meaningfully at the highly mysterious black girl, standing taller than she. "What?" the girl asked.

"Have you got a name?"

"Frannie."

"Just Frannie? Like... just _Cher_?"

"No, it's Frannie Obeng."

Martha's mouth went dry and something caught in her throat when she heard the name.


	8. The Revelation

THE REVELATION

A wave of unpleasant heat came over Martha as though she'd been thrown into an oven. The girl's name echoed over and over in her head, and she even swooned a bit, catching herself on the kitchen counter. She thought about asking the girl to repeat it, just to be sure, but in the end, there was no need. She was sure. How could she not have seen it before?

The Doctor's voice snapped her out of her stupor. "Martha!" she heard him screaming from the outside. "What's going on?"

Billy said, "I'll go and see if he needs any help holding..._ you know what _off." He left the house through the kitchen door and began running.

Suddenly, the implications of having Frannie Obeng in _this _house hit her. Listening to the Doctor ranting and raving about crossing timelines and paradoxes and all that _Back To The Future_ stuff had taught her a thing or two.

_This girl could cause a major paradox, unless we can stop her!_

"Listen," Martha said to Miss Obeng. "We have to get out of here, it's not safe!"

"Well yeah," Frannie agreed. "My stupid sister just proved that."

"No, it's not that. There are these... things, and they're after us."

"What things?" the girl asked. "What are you on about?"

Martha lost her cool for a second and threw herself forward, grasping Frannie's shoulders. "Just listen to me! You need to get out of here and _never ever _come back! Do you understand?"

Frannie shook loose of Martha's grip. "You're mad, you are! And don't tell me what to do! You're not my mother."

With that, Frannie took her sister by the hand and dashed out of the house through the kitchen door, and the other two girls shrugged and went off after them. Martha was alone in the kitchen of Wester Drumlins, shaking.

Into the empty space, with a quavering voice, she responded to Frannie's final phrase with, "I wish I could say the same to you."

In a daze, Martha went out through the front door and saw the Doctor and Billy standing just outside the entrance to the house grounds. All four angels were there, surrounding a large patch of garden as though they were going to pounce on it, but the two men were looking at them. Good thing too, because Martha didn't notice them at all as she moved slowly across the grounds, staring at nothing.

As she reached the entrance, she looked up and noticed that the Doctor and Billy looking at her, searching. She only asked, "Where are the girls?"

"They ran off in the other direction. What's wrong?" the Doctor said.

"So they're definitely off the premises?"

"Yep. What's wrong?"

"Can we go home now?"

"Yeah. I told Billy he could stay on our sofa for tonight. What's wrong?"

"Okay, we have plenty of extra blankets in..."

"Martha," he said forcefully, but with concern. "What is wrong?"

She took a deep breath that seemed to make her whole body tingle. "I just met a girl called Frannie Obeng, and her sister Letitia."

"So? Who's Frannie Obeng?"

Martha made meaningful eye-contact with the Doctor then, and said, "She's my mum."

The Doctor and Martha held each others' eyes, and Billy exclaimed in a low voice, "Oh, bugger."

* * *

The Doctor could tell that Billy had a million questions, especially after this new revelation, but he resisted asking them. He simply walked with them, thanked them, made small talk.

As they walked through the door, the Doctor invited Billy to have a seat. He hung up his coat and set the Timey-Wimey Detector upon the coffee table, and asked, "So, then, your sister Tish is named after your aunt."

"Yeah," Martha said, throwing herself into the armchair. "But we never knew her. She died of cancer in 1978."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Billy muttered, sitting on the edge of the sofa.

"I just can't believe it. I _know_ for a solid _fact _that that little girl, that tiny, innocent thing that I rescued from a kitchen cave-in is going to waste away from cancer in less than ten years. God, that is so hard to accept! She'll be nineteen then – hardly will have lived at all. I never thought about how young she was when she died because it happened before I was born, like history, you know? But now... suddenly..."

"Welcome to my world," the Doctor said softly, kneeling down next to her. He kissed her hand. "But you also know that her older sister will grow up and have a great, full life."

Billy pointed out, "That is, if we can stop her hanging around Wester Drumlins. What if she gets zapped?

"I never get born," Martha answered. "Gee, now I _really _feel like Marty McFly."

"Right," the Doctor sighed, sitting back on his heels. "Any suggestions?"

She sniffed. "No. Do you know how stubborn she is?"

"It has been brought to my attention, yes," the Doctor replied. "What's she doing there, anyway?"

"She likes old things," Martha explained. "She always has. Do you know what my mother does for a living? She works at Sotheby's Auction House in the authentications department. She heads her own research team. But that's Francine Jones, the Cambridge-educated, briefcase-carrying, daughter-pestering, proper English career woman. Frannie Obeng, she just steals random things from old delapidated houses. Her friend said she needs to _find_ things on her own, she can't just buy them... oh my God."

"What?"

"Her friend. Alice McCluskey, the redhead who was with her this morning? That's Alice Duchamp, my mum's best friend! She keeps trying to fix me up with her son Wilhelm. He looks like a chubby David Caruso."

Billy winced and the Doctor laughed. "The future is funny that way."

"Anyway, she goes to that house every day to get something new for her collection," said Martha.

He took the other armchair and plunged himself into thought. "Well, let's see. What do we know about your mum's personality? Stubborn, tough, clever. She looks after her own."

"She has athsma," Martha offered, feeling unhelpful.

"She sort of hinted that she has rather strict parents," Billy said. "Is that true?"

"Yes," Martha realised. "It is. They're African Catholics."

Billy sympathised. "Ooh, no toes out of line!"

"Which is why she's a bit naughty, I'd wager," the Doctor thought aloud.

Martha smiled. "_Do as you're told, Martha. I'm your mum, I know best. _What a hypocrite!"

"I think you'll find that most parents are, a little bit."

"But I suppose that means that telling her _she can't_ won't work, because it will just make her want to even more. And then she'll drag her friends into it and they'll all get zapped," Martha reasoned.

"Well, now we're back to that old dilemma," the Doctor shrugged. "When we didn't know who she was and we were going to try and find out, we had this discussion. How do we know when she'll be there, since we can't patrol the place twenty-four hours a day? We can't set up a..." he froze and stared at Martha.

"What?"

"Remember I said that we couldn't set up a device to detect her energy signature because we didn't have her DNA?"

"Oh!" Martha said, sitting up straight.

"Yes!" The Doctor leaned forward and grabbed the Timey-Wimey Detector. "We'll still need this thing to tell us when the TARDIS gets here, but there's nothing that says we can't add a function. It'll be like a Swiss Army knife."

"Right, because all Swiss Army knives detect energy signatures and pick up traces of temporal displacement residue."

"Clearly, you've never been to Switzerland in the year 4122."

"Clearly."

"You two are barmy," Billy said, half-laughing, half-scared.

The Doctor stood up and opened the storage cupboard. He found an old torch and screwed off its head. Then he rooted around for a pair of pliers and when he found them, he used them to yank the coil at the bottom of the torch's body out of the tubing.

"Martha, can I have a shock of your hair, please?" he asked. Martha grabbed her hairbrush from the bathroom and pulled some of the excess hair loose. The Doctor pressed the wad of hair against the bottom of the torch's head, then pressed the coil against it. He handed it to Billy to hold that way, while he fetched the electrical tape. He wrapped it up with the tape, so that it was all pressed together. Then he broke the glass barrier between the little lightbulb and the rest of the world, and the sonic screwdriver then came out of his pocket and buzzed against each part of the new little machine.

"What are you doing?" asked Billy.

"Well, normally a torch gives off energy," the Doctor said. "I'm reversing its output to _input_, and asking it to take the DNA sample and convert it to an energy signature sample. And we'll set it somewhere on the grounds at Wester Drumlins, just in case Frannie happens by again. I'm setting it to recognise a 50% or better similarity, so it will pick up _the mother_ of the DNA subject."

"How will we know, if the device is across town?" asked Martha.

"This is how," said the Doctor. He went back into the storage cupboard and came back with a red Christmas light. He detached it from its wire, and sonicked it, then sonicked part of the coil on the new machine. Then, he attached the red light to the Timey-Wimey Detector with tape. "There. Now the red light will come on whenever Francine is near the little machine."

"Good, so blue, we have a TARDIS. Red, my... Frannie is near Wester Drumlins," Martha explained, more to herself than to anyone.

"Corrrrrrect," the Doctor said, rolling the 'r's' exaggeratedly.

"You made that out of a torch?" Billy asked.

"Yes. Well, and my trusty sonic screwdriver."

"And you made the Timey-Wimey Detector out of an egg boiler and an old film projector?"

"Yes."

"You're like an alien MacGyver!"

"Alien?" the Doctor started, looking up quickly at Martha and Billy. "Who said I was an alien?"

"She did," Billy answered, pointing at Martha almost accusatorily.

"Oh, right. Well. Yes, then," the Doctor conceded, going back to the new detector for fine-tuning.

In a moment, the red light came on, blinking like mad, detecting Martha's energy signature in the air as a match for the DNA sample it had been given. The Doctor tuned it down to detect a 50-75% similarity and no more, that way the sonic wouldn't constantly be making noise whenever Martha was near it.

"Right then," said the Doctor. "Now we'll know when she's there. Now how do we get her to stay away?"


	9. The Celebration

**PLEASE FORGIVE THE SHAMELESS ROMANTICISM OF THIS CHAPTER. I KNOW WE HAD SOMETHING SIMILAR AT THE BEGINNING, BUT I WANTED ANOTHER ONE! AND I REALIZE THAT IT VEERS OFF INTO SERIOUSLY RANDOM TERRITORY, TRUST ME, IT DOES HAVE TO DO WITH THE MAIN FRANNIE OBENG STORY!**

* * *

THE CELEBRATION

The Doctor and Martha pored over Sally Sparrow's file, and then, so did Billy. Though, the Doctor kept from him the bits about the conversation he was to have with Sally on the night he dies. They were satisfied that they had left every clue they needed to for now, and all that remained was to wait for the TARDIS to come to them. And stop Frannie Obeng from causing a time paradox, of course.

Later in the day, the Doctor returned to Wester Drumlins, at great personal risk, to set the device in a central location, though out of the reach of the Weeping Angels. Billy went to the building owners to ask after the empty flats, and he moved in two floors up. Cheap rents, already horribly furnished, but it was home for now.

Over the next few days, Martha went to work, sold clothes, cooked a few meals, acted like an utterly normal person, but had trouble sleeping. The Doctor did his best to help, but the same fears always overcame her once he was asleep again, and she was alone. She could not shake the feeling that she might, at any moment, simply cease to exist. She fancied that she could feel herself weakening from time to time. The rational human within told her it was all in her mind, the doctor within told her it was protein deficiency, but the time traveller within told her it was her mother lurking about the angels and jeopardising Martha's existence.

But she did not voice this fear to the Doctor. She was concerned that if she did, he would feel that she didn't trust him. As always, _he _had come up with the beginnings of a solution, _he _had assured her not to worry, _he_ had done the legwork – all she had to do was have faith.

Which she did. She had total faith in the Doctor, and in her heart of hearts, knew that he would make it all okay. But having faith didn't mean that she was fearless.

Her mistake, of course, was in assuming that the Doctor could not understand this nuance. He had been like a blunt instrument during the time when she had loved him without his reciprocation, and it made her sometimes assume that he would be insensitive to the complicatedness of her emotions. But she had forgotten how, when Rose had been thrown unceremoniously, violently back into their lives, he had rushed to assure Martha of her place in his life, and that he loved her "no matter what happens."

And the fact was that, though the Doctor wasn't a mind-reader (at least not 99 per cent of the time), he _was_ in love with Martha, and very keen on her feelings. Not to mention, cleverer than any man in the universe. He had a fairly good idea what was going on in her head.

And so, five days on, Martha arrived home, and found a hand-written note displayed prominently on the counter. She had rarely seen the Doctor's actual handwriting, and she marvelled at its roundness and almost calligraphic grace. She supposed that his Roman letters must carry the "accent," so to speak, of those great, circular Gallifreyan letters he was brought up with. Nevertheless, it made for a very beautiful effect. The note read, "_Courtyard garden. Dress for warm weather. XO."_

This made her smile and feel her first rush of joy in days. She changed out of what she thought of as a shop-girl uniform, and put on a yellow linen shift dress. She was lucky she had it – she'd been buying only clothes for the winter, it being late February, but the shop had received this dress as a promotional piece and the owner had said Martha could have it. It fit her like a glove, but she didn't have any appropriate shoes. She took a page from the fashions of her own time and pulled on a pair of tight-fitted jeans under the dress and put her feet in some clogs. Then she threw on her coat and headed down to what passed for a garden in the courtyard of the old run-down building they were currently calling home.

She exited the building and turned the corner to find the black wrought-iron gate slightly ajar. She walked through it into a tangled mess of dead ivy, dried-up flowers, leaves and dirt. Above her head, tree branches twined around each other, neglected and practically ingrown in places. She wondered if these trees could ever grow leaves again. The place was nearly pitch-black, bushes obscuring the lights from the street. Underfoot, she could barely feel a cement path that led from one end of the courtyard to the other, and occasionally, she could feel when she veered off of it into softer territory.

She stepped through the area carefully, so as not to trip on any stray fallen branches or God knew what other debris. So distracted was she by this process that for a full moment, she failed to notice the most welcome sight she had ever, and would ever experience: the Doctor, smiling, leaning against his TARDIS.

Martha looked up at it in awe, as though it were the first time. She sighed, "Oh, am I ever glad to see that!"

"Happy Valentine's Day," the Doctor said, smirking. He stepped toward her and put his arms around her waist. "A bit late."

"I don't care! This is the best Valentine's gift _ever_!" She jumped up and planted an enthusiastic kiss squarely on his mouth.

"Well, I figured I'd let you cash in your coupon now. Figured you could use it. I know you've been a bit stressed out."

"Having one's existence in jeopardy will do that."

"Tell me about it."

"When did it arrive?" she asked, indicating the welcome blue box.

"A couple of hours ago. It turned up in someone's carport. The Timey-Wimey Detector went ding and I followed it out to the suburbs – nearly got shot by the homeowners. I don't care to have that happen again, thanks."

"Well, let's get the hell out of here!" Martha exclaimed.

"Wait, aren't you forgetting something? Like your mother? I can't speak for you, but she's one of the least forgettable people _I've_ ever met."

"Oh yeah," she said. "Then why did you tell me to dress for warm weather?"

"Because," he replied. "Although we can't simply blow out of 1969 like a hurricane just because we've got our transport back, there's nothing that says we have to stay in London for our Valentine's celebration."

"Ah!" she sing-songed, smiling widely. "I get it. Tahiti?"

"Even better. May I help you into the carriage, milady?" he asked, offering his hand.

"Of course," she said, taking it. She stepped into the glowing gold TARDIS interior, and felt more relaxed than she had in weeks. She sighed. "Oh, this has got to be my favourite place in the universe."

"And I'm going to take you to one of mine," the Doctor said, walking past her, up the ramp to the console. "Though I believe you're a bit overdressed."

"Right," she said. She peeled off her jacket and stepped out of her shoes and jeans. She stood barefooted on the TARDIS' metal floor wearing her radiant yellow shift. "Er, I don't have any shoes for this dress."

"It's okay," he told her. "We aren't going to stray very far from the TARDIS."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to the planet Fadsnell," he told her, throwing back the handbrake, setting the vehicle in motion.

"Excuse me?"

"I know it sounds awful, but they've got this phenomenon called the Silaero Barorua, and it's breathtaking. Very romantic. I haven't seen it in... oh, it must be centuries now."

In a minute or so, the TARDIS came to a halt. Martha stepped outside onto a soft, sandy surface. The particles melted into her toes, feeling cool like evening air against her skin. The atmosphere itself was quite warm, and Martha was glad she had shed her winter clothes in favour of something less constricting.

But the most extraordinary bit was the sky. Against a rich, royal purple background, an elaborate light show was taking place. Dotted across the sky, chunks of glowing gold, in varying shapes and sizes seemed to fall slowly to the planet's surface, like a lazy sort of rain. What looked like lit-up pink puffballs seemed to fly about aimlessly, though not falling. At, maybe, twenty-second intervals, they would collide with the gold pieces, and a few seconds later, there would be an explosion of gold light and a flickering of pink behind it, tempering the tableau and making it a softer, more palatable work of art, rather than just a simple fireworks show.

The purple dome stretched over them, and it was alive with this sequence of events taking place all over. The whole sky was lit up with pink and gold, colours colliding and causing some kind of combustion. It was fabulous.

She heard the TARDIS door creak open behind her, and turned to find the Doctor. He was carrying a large picnic basket in one hand, and a big fluffy blanket in the other. He dropped them on the soft sand and joined her, watching the sky. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

She exhaled loudly. "It's breathtaking. What is it?"

"Well, those pink things? They're called Silaero. They feed on radiating energy. Light sources."

"They're alive?"

"Yep," he said. He loved to pop that P. "Normally, they just fly about the cities during the day and drive folks mad trying to gobble up their heat and light sources. The inhabitants here spend half their lives trying to figure out how best to repel those things."

"Hunh!" Martha exclaimed. "Like mosquitoes."

"But," he cut in. He pointed to a far-off spot in the sky. "Do you see that glowing red dot out there?"

"Yes."

"That planet is radioactive and magnetic. Its odd magentism means does not orbit round anything, but just sort of meanders about space. It has only recently come within sight distance of this planet. But while it was meandering, it began to cause a black hole to de-gravitate."

"Whoa! Are you kidding me?"

"Nope. Its magnetism is causing an actual _black hole_ to release its gravitational hold, and its radiation is causing the particles to pick up a glow as they pass by. Once those particles come into orbit round this planet, the gravity here pulls them in, and those are the gold pieces you see falling."

"Those gold chunks were once part of a black hole?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Okay, so the Silaero are feeding on those particles as sources of light – radiating energy. Why are they exploding?"

"They're spitting them out. Because they were once part of a black hole, the gold pieces carry a taint of darkness. They're not pure light, they've been harboured in the heart of a shadow. A black hole is the _epitome_ of dark, and the Silaero can taste it. It's bitter to them, like a biscuit injected with drain cleaner."

"Oh my God, that's amazing! But, does it kill the Silaero?"

"No, it just makes them weaker, that's why you can see them sort of flickering. And they're very simple creatures – stupid, in fact – and they never learn. But the gold rain stops before it extincts the Silaero."

The Doctor then got on his knees and began arranging the blanket on the sand. Martha stood transfixed, watching the light show for several minutes. Eventually, he took her arm and turned her to face him. She smiled, and they shared a soft, deep kiss.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

"Actually, I am," she answered.

He gestured toward the spread. He had arranged a platter of various fruits and cheeses and some thin slices of black bread. They knelt on the blanket and he uncorked some wine, and poured it into two dainty goblets. They each took their glass and toasted their time together, and just as she was swallowing her first mouthful, the Doctor came at her with a cube of cantaloupe. She allowed him to place it in her mouth, then tasted the sweetest melon she had ever known.

Her eyes rolled back a bit, and she let out a little moan. "_Where_ did you find this melon? It's like candy!"

"Don't worry about it."

"But London... 1969... in February?"

He opened his mouth and exhaled with exasperation. "Let's just say I cheated a bit."

She watched as the Doctor placed a bit of the fruit in his own mouth, then licked his fingers. The sight brought her an unexpected rush of lust, and the atmosphere did nothing to calm it.

They experimented with different cheeses coupled with various fruits. Strawberries go best with medium-flavoured hard cheeses, melon goes well with the sharper lot. The soft cheeses, like Brie, go best with apples and pears. The wine, however, seemed to go with everything!

Later, when they finished eating, they lay on the blanket, food pushed aside, his hands behind his head, and her head on his chest. They watched the pink and gold presentation in the sky and every now and then, one of them would let out a soft, satisfied sigh.

A thought occurred to Martha. "Why wasn't this whole planet sucked into the black hole long ago?" she asked, her voice slightly muted by his clothes.

"It would have been, in time, I expect," replied the Doctor. "It's pretty far away... way on the other side of that red planet. But sooner or later, everything gets pulled in. Only now, it won't."

She smiled. "That's brilliant."

"Yes, well," he sighed. "That radioactive planet will eventually come close enough to this one to fry it dry. By _your _time, Martha, this planet is a desert."

She lifted her head to look at him. "You mean it dies? The Silaero, the plants, the inhabitants?"

"I'm afraid so," he said, not oblivious to the sudden sadness in her eyes. "Everything has its time, Martha. This planet is twenty-eight billion years old."

"Still," she said. "This lot – they have no idea, do they?"

"No," he conceded.

"Does it happen quickly at least? Do they suffer?"

"No, they don't suffer. It happens like an atomic bomb."

"They only have a few years' time left, and they don't even get a warning."

"Now, Martha..."

"No, no," she said, holding up one hand defensively. "I'm not suggesting we warn them, it's just... it's sad. They won't even get a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones. One day, one moment, it's just over."

He began to stroke her hair. "I know. It just shows how true it is that we have to live every day as though it were our last."

"As though one of us might cease to exist at any moment?" she asked.

Calmly, he told her, "You're not going to cease to exist, Martha."

She touched his lower lip with her index finger. "Can anyone see us?" she asked, tracing her finger across and back.

"Not likely," he said. "This part of the planet is like Siberia."

"Then, can we _pretend_ I might cease to exist?"

He looked at her with intrigue, and some concern. "What are you saying?"

With blazing eyes, she asked, "If that were a _real_ danger, Doctor, what would you do?"

He turned her over, so that she was on her back, and he was supporting himself on his elbows above her. "Are you really that scared?"

She shrugged.

"Do you want me to reassure you, or act like this is your last night to live?"

"How about one, and then the other?" Martha whispered. "In reverse order."

* * *

***SIGH* I ACTUALLY WROTE THE ENSUING HOT 'N' HEAVY PART - IT WAS MEANT TO BE THE GREAT, EPIC, CATHARTIC LOVE SCENE FOR THIS STRESSFUL STORY. THEREFORE, IT'S LONG, SAPPY, SORT OF GRAPHIC, KIND OF EXPLOSIVE. BUT, ONCE IT WAS ALL WRITTEN, I HESITATED TO PUT IT IN BECAUSE I ACTUALLY THOUGHT THAT THE CHAPTER ITSELF WAS MORE MEANINGFUL WITHOUT IT. **

**BUT... **

***CHEWS FINGERNAILS AND WHINES* I REALLY LIKE THE NAUGHTY BITS, AND I LOVE MARTHA AND THE DOCTOR BEING NAUGHTY TOGETHER! IT'S A SICKNESS, REALLY. AND SO, THE NAUGHTY BITS ARE IN THE CHAPTER ENTITLED "THE DELETED SCENE." IF YOU WANT TO READ IT, IT'S THERE - KNOCK YOURSELF OUT. IF YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT IT, THEN SKIP IT. :-)**


	10. The Deleted Scene

THE DELETED SCENE

He kissed her, pressing her back into the soft sand and pushing her lips apart with his own. When their tongues began to dance, at first, she just lay there, relishing the moment. But gradually, the euphoria passed, and was replaced by a blinding ache. She pushed her hands between herself and the Doctor and hastily unbuttoned his suit coat and shirt pushed them down his arms. He tossed them both aside without missing a beat.

He moved down her body and pushed the linen dress up. He held it in place just below her breasts as his tongue forged crooked and winding paths across and down her smooth brown midriff. His wanderings ceased for a few seconds, and he tugged at the waistband of her stringy lavender knickers. He pulled them down her legs and she kicked them off. Soon, she felt the same winding paths of his tongue dragging across her inner thighs, first the left, then the right. Then back again, then back again. She groaned with the almost oppressive anticipation, and unable to help himself, the Doctor giggled a bit, pleased with himself.

And then, suddenly, his aimless meandering turned purposeful. From her right knee all the way up the inside of her leg, he planted ripe kisses in a straight, but maddeningly slow, ascent. When there was no more leg left, and Martha was panting, he allowed his tongue to explore the place in-between, the centre of all her pleasure. Releasing a breathy cry into the purple and gold night, she threw her forearm over her eyes in despair of this overwhelming sensation. Her body was fully ignited now, and it felt as though he was tracing the words of a long love letter with his tongue over the single most sensitive inch of her body. Twice, he felt her fingers dig in and grip his wayward hair, and then shudder beneath his touch. Each time, he brought her down gently, massaging the surrounding flesh, listening to cues from her breathing.

As he began to help her ascend for a third time, she pulled away and sat up, and they each found themselves kneeling on the blanket, staring at the other. She pushed her hands against his shoulders to indicate that she'd like him to lie down. He obeyed, and then watched as she pulled her beloved yellow dress over her head. There she was, Martha Jones, naked and spectacular against the purple sky, looking down on her Doctor with love. She leaned in and kissed his clavicle, and then worked her way down his chest. Now it was the Doctor's turn to feel that oppressive anticipation, the tightness, the hunger. Then, she kissed her way horizontally across his middle, just above the low-slung waistband of his trousers. She moved just as maddeningly slowly as he had on her, and he held his breath as she did this, and let out a frustrated puff of air as she began the process again, in the opposite direction.

Finally, she undid the button of his trousers, and kissed the flesh underneath. Then she slowly pushed the zip down, and moved to help him remove the remainder of his clothing. That done, Martha sat on her knees between his thighs and wasted no further time. She had been dying to do this ever since they first discovered their love for each other (although, if she was honest with herself, she'd wanted to do this since the night they first flew off together). And as she slid her lips over his length for the first time, she made sure to take in the feeling – the smoothness, the hardness, at long last, sailing over her tongue. She closed her eyes, and a feeling of great satisfaction came over her, which she could not explain. She listened to the moan that escaped from him, then opened her eyes to find the Doctor staring back at her. She did not break eye contact as she pulled her mouth back up again, and then repeated the downward motion, greeted again by a moan. She repeated herself over and over, each moment more quickly. She watched his face tighten with the agonising pleasure. She worked her tongue over him, worked her hands, and before long, his body tensed even further. His breathing changed, quickened, became erratic and short, and when her momentum finally gave him release, she was more than ready. She heard an exhausted groan, and felt her mouth suddenly flooded. She let the warm liquid slide down her throat, and released him from her mouth.

She kissed her way back up his body, then straddled across his middle. She leaned down, pressing her lips once more against his. One arm curled around her, while the other hand grabbed hold of the edge of the blanket. He rolled swiftly to one side, wrapping himself and Martha within the folds, and conveniently placing himself on top once more. He slid inside her, and she took in a surprised gasp, opening her eyes wide to meet his.

"If I really thought you might cease to exist..." he whispered, his eyes intense, his body moving within her.

"...it might be my last night to live..." she whispered back, eyes just as intense.

"...I'd have to go with you," he said.

"I don't think it works that way," she sighed.

"It might," he answered, kissing her behind the ear. "If I get really close to you."

She smiled at the innocence of his remark, the almost child-like quality of it. It completely undercut the fact that he has the whole of time mapped out in his brain like a blueprint, and he knew very well that if Martha ceased to exist, it would just be him left here, wrapped in a blanket in the sand.

But he held her tighter, and his movements grew more insistent. This time, they began the climb together, their bodies moving and tightening like strands of rope, their breaths coming in harried spurts, their fingers gripping, their voices chiming in chorus. And when it was all too much, their tensions were released together, mutual relief washing over them at the same time, their bodies calming each other.

After a long, chatty interval, they wrapped themselves tighter, and this time, Martha guided them both into oblivion. Several times that night, she thought that she could die then, slide right out of this life, and be happy simply to have lived. But then she would open her eyes and see the man she loved and followed to the far corners of the universe, and she clung to him. She had never so seriously contemplated death and life, welcomed the darkness but clawed at the light.


	11. The Shop

THE SHOP

Another two weeks passed without the detector detecting. Martha was starting to get rather bored simply cooling her heels in 1969, and the Doctor was positively crawling out of his skin. She spent her days working, which wasn't horrible, but it wasn't exactly stimulating, either. If she couldn't be travelling across time and space in the TARDIS, at least she'd have liked to get back to medicine. The Doctor, for his part, had developed a reputation in the building for being a guy who knew how to fix things (thanks to Billy), so he spent some days in other people's flats rewiring the creepy blinking lightbulbs and making the plumbing livable so as not to collect mould. Perotta the landlord was not exactly prompt and punctual, so the Doctor stepped in. What else was he going to do?

They spent some of their evenings socialising with Billy Shipton and Sally Pfitzinger. She had reconciled with her father, and Billy was now working for him. Mr. Pfitzinger had briefly put him in bookbinding, but when he had showed a knowledge and enthusiasm beyond his years (and indeed beyond the year of 1969), Billy was placed in the video development division, which, at the time, was just a fledgling industry. Billy was exactly where he needed to be in order for Martha and the Doctor's plan really to go off properly, and fortunately, he found the work rather fascinating.

Fifteen days after their trip to the planet Fadsnell, Martha dragged herself into the flat as though her entire body were made of wet mop. The Doctor was sitting in an armchair fixing something.

"Hello love," he said, without looking at her. "See you still exist today."

"Yeah, well," she answered, slinking down into the sofa. "After the day I've had, I wouldn't say no to a good time paradox right now. Do we have any alcohol?"

"There's still some of that expensive Scotch that Pfitzinger gave us for fixing the editing terminal. Why, what happened?"

"Augh," she groaned. "This lady... no, lady is too kind. This fat, rude, shrill _cow_ of a human being came into the store today. She wanted a _personal shopper_." Martha stated this last bit with exaggerated air quotes.

"Already? It's 1969!"

"I know! But fancy telling her that. Anyway, I followed her around the store picking out anything that might be slimming (her idea, not mine), but she kept saying no to everything I suggested and picking out horizontal stripes in yellow and insisting on light-coloured trousers which only made her bottom look like the white cliffs of Dover."

The Doctor finally took his attention from his work and looked at her. She was haggard, and she had never known her to be quite so insulting toward or about anyone, even if they deserved it. "Blimey, Martha."

"I know, I look like hell. That's because after she _blamed me_ for all of the unflattering outfits she'd chosen, she told my boss that I was an ineffectual salesperson and I got reamed for forty-five minutes by Mrs. Langley, who smells like feet. Her office must be, like, a million degrees. I'm sweating, I'm hungry, I'm pissed off, and I want to leave this bloody year. I have not spent three years in medical school _for this_."

Suddenly, the Doctor felt quite guilty. He had known that she wasn't particularly happy with their existence here, that she simply tolerated it because he said they needed to stay long enough to prevent Frannie Obeng from getting zapped the next time she went back to Wester Drumlins. But this was the first time he had realised that he was sort of wasting Martha's life by making her stay here. He had, potentially, all the time in the world to wait this out, but Martha did not. She was already 24 years old, and she may have as few as sixty years left! And she was right – she was far too educated and clever for the likes of this.

"I'm sorry, Martha," he said, setting the contraption down on the coffee table. He stood and came to sit beside her on the sofa. He put his arm around her, and she leaned in. "Would it help if I told you that someone called me 'the bloody wannabe handyman' today?"

"What?" she asked, smiling for the first time all afternoon.

"Can you believe it? My people invented inverted-spatial technology, which involved developing a process for molecular dissolution and reconstitution upon a threshold of one nanosecond for any being or piece of matter in the known universe. Sounds simple, but it's not! I carry a sonic device in my pocket which could crash the space shuttle from here if I wanted it to. I'm a _Time Lord_ , for God's sake, and he called me a wannabe handyman. Not even the handyman. The wannabe handyman. Let's see him rewire a lightbulb socket in seven minutes!"

"Let me guess: Perotta?" she asked, still smiling a bit guiltily.

"Of course," he said. "He was all in a twist because I... I don't know, violated his super-sacred landlord turf or something. I guess he heard I'd been fixing the things he hadn't gotten around to and decided to make an arse of himself."

Both were quiet for a long moment, leaning against each other in mutual exasperation and comfort. Finally, Martha said, "Doctor, we have to get out of here. I mean, for good."

"Well," he sighed. "I suppose we can't wait around forever. We may need to think about leaving well-enough alone. Whoa – there's a novel thought, eh?"

"You mean, just assume she won't go back there, and leave this year without really knowing?"

"Yep."

Martha sighed. "You know what my hang-up is, but I trust you. I'll work at that shop as long as you need me to."

"Well, there's no reason for you to have to go back there... in fact, there's no reason to live in this flat anymore. We have everything we need in the TARDIS. Even if we stay a few more days, we can at least get out of this rat trap. After I put this thing right, of course." He leaned forward and picked up the thing he'd been working on before.

"I told you not to dismantle that thing," she said, looking at the movie projector he had dissected in order to make his Timey-Wimey Detector.

"I had it out, mining it for parts again, when Perotta came. He threw an absolute fit. I told him I'd have it fixed by tomorrow, but I looked for the missing parts in the TARDIS this afternoon, and I don't have any such camera parts from this era – 1946 or so. I may just have to go shopping for them."

"Okay, you do that, and I'll quit my job. The two of us can move back into the TARDIS tomorrow. Not living _here_ will help a lot."

"And if Miss Obeng doesn't turn up at Wester Drumlins by Friday, then we're out of here, okay?"

"Can we do that?"

"Worse things have happened." he told her.

* * *

"Hello, sir, what can I do for you?" asked the older gent behind the counter of McCormick's Antiques Shop.

"Are you McCormick?" asked the Doctor.

"Indeed."

The Doctor heaved the heavy projector out of the satchel in which he had been carrying it and set it on the table. "I don't suppose you've got anything like this? Or even just some of the parts?"

The man inspected it. "Oh, I don't think so. This is fairly modern, my boy."

The Doctor scrunched his face up. "Really? You think? It's post-war, it's a classic!"

McCormick gave him a fond regard, then said, "The war's only been over for twenty-four years. Not exactly antiquity, if I do say so myself." He indicated his old, weathered face as he said this, and laughed at his self-deprecating remark.

"Well, all right then, I guess I'll have to find a specialty shop," the Doctor mumbled, packing the cumbersome thing back into the case he'd brought. He turned to leave, and just as he reached the shop door, something caught his eye, right on a shelf at face-level. A porcelain angel, probably Limoges, weeping. It did not have its eyes covered like the Weeping Angels at Wester Drumlins, but it was simply crying with painted-on tears. The gold leaf was chipping and the halo was just a bit broken. Frankly, the thing looked ancient.

McCormick, at this point, had gone into the back of the store. "Blimey!" the Doctor heard him half-shout. "Did all of this come from Manchester? We'll never get it all sorted! I've got a business to run – who's going to catalogue all of this?"

A woman's voice said something that sounded wifely, such as "Calm down, Richard..."

The Doctor returned to the counter. "Mr. McCormick?" he called out.

The old man appeared between the gap of two red curtains. "Yes?"

"Hi, it's me again. Sorry to bother you. I couldn't help overhearing that you're having a bit of an inventory crisis."

"Yes, my brother in Manchester fell ill and had to give up his business. No one to run it there, so he had all of his stock sent this way – goes to waste otherwise, winds up in junkyards," McCormick said, sadly.

"I'm sorry about your brother," the Doctor offered. "But what if I told you that I know someone who might like to help you catalogue your inventory?"

"That'd be nice," McCormick answered. "But I'm afraid we can't afford the labour."

"Would you be willing to pay her in trinkets? Say, one small antique per day's work?" the Doctor asked.

"Er, all right, I suppose," the man said, rubbing his chin. "But I'd have to set a price limit or what-have-you."

"Goes without saying," the Doctor said, almost in a single syllable. "Okay, McCormick! I'll be back tomorrow and I'll be bringing help!" He ran out of the shop with flourish, leaving both McCormicks staring after him.

* * *

He found Martha at their flat, tidying.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "Are you actually dusting the curtains?"

"I know we hate it and we're moving out, but I'm not going to leave the place a mess," she said. "Why do you have that look on your face?"

The Doctor hadn't been aware that he was making a face. He did feel a sort of maniacal thrill inside, as he sometimes did when the beginnings of an idea were forming. He supposed, perhaps, he might look a bit maniacal on the outside as well.

"Martha, do you know how to find your mother's house?" he asked, suddenly taking her by the shoulders.

"You mean the house she grew up in? No – I know the neighbourhood, roughly, but I don't know which house."

"Could you find the street? I mean, if you saw the name, would you know it?" He released her and began to pace.

"Maybe, why?"

"I think I found a solution to our little Wester Drumlins problem! You finish packing, I'm going to go find Billy!"


	12. The Chase

THE CHASE

When the Doctor met Billy on the stairs, the former DI Shipton was carrying a satchel in one hand, much as the Doctor had been, not fifteen minutes ago. As the Doctor was explaining what he wanted, Martha locked up the flat and turned up on the stairs with them.

"But why does it have to be me?" asked Billy.

"Because Martha's her daughter who hasn't been born yet and who is, in fact, older than she is right now," the Doctor explained, machine-gun style. "She should have as little contact with Martha as possible. And as for me, well... she's never trusted me. Not to mention, she cannot recognise me when she meets me again in 2007."

Billy sighed. "Okay. But I have a date with Sally tonight, so we have to make it quick."

"Sure thing," the Doctor said. "Just a quick stop at our favourite creepy mansion."

"What for?" Martha wanted to know.

"We need that DNA signature detector," he told her. "If you can narrow down the street, even if you aren't sure which house, maybe we can get a reading on the contraption.

They all exited through the front door, Billy not even having stopped at home first. On the way down the block, Martha asked him, "What's in the satchel?"

"It's a video camera," Billy told her. "A very primitive one. Pfitzinger gave it to me to test out. He said to film something interesting and the research team will attempt to replicate it with one hundred per cent picture quality."

"Aww," Martha said. "It's almost cute."

"Yeah," Billy chuckled. "I can't wait 'til digital. I'm really going to look clever then!"

On the tube, and as they walked, they discussed what Billy might say to Frannie when he saw her. As they approached Wester Drumlins, the Doctor said, "All right, if she's outside, let me hear what you'll say."

Billy cleared his throat. "Say, aren't you that girl I saw at that big house a few weeks ago?"

"You're a little stiff," the Doctor told him.

"Well, what do you want from me? I'm a copper, not an actor!"

"Okay, fine. Try it one more time, and try not to clip your syllables so much."

"Are you sure that's not just my accent?" Billy asked, exasperated.

"Quite sure. Try it again."

"Say, aren't you that girl I saw at that big house a few weeks ago?"

"Better. Now..."

"Doctor," Martha warbled as they got close to the fence surrounding the house. She pointed down, just on the other side of the partition, where the DNA recognition device sat. It was vibrating like mad, flipping itself over and over, upsetting the dried leaves on the ground.

"She's here!" the Doctor gasped.

Without hesitation, the Doctor and Martha sprinted onto the grounds of Wester Drumlins, but the angels were nowhere in sight. That could only mean one thing: they had zeroed in on their prey elsewhere. After a quick stop and a glance around, the Doctor headed off to the left.

"You go the other way!" he called back at her. "Keep your eyes open, Martha!"

Back on the pavement where they had left Billy, he was fumbling with what felt to him like an _ancient_ piece of equipment. He had thought that this could be the interesting thing caught on film, so turned on the recording function and set the camera down on a waist-high stump just inside the grounds. The viewfinder showed the entire front of the house, including four windows and the front porch.

And then, he went off in yet a third direction, toward the formal gardens. He left the house to the professionals.

* * *

The Doctor entered the house through the back kitchen door. He looked up and saw the hole apparently left by Frannie's kid sister Letitia, who had fallen through the floor weeks before.

"Frannie?" he called out. He knew she shouldn't see him, but he hadn't been prepared for the possibility that she'd be here _right now_, and already inside the house! He'd panicked and run. No time to dwell on the future now, not with this much at stake. He had reassured Martha that she absolutely would not cease to exist, but now, he wasn't so sure. And he couldn't lose her – he _had_ to find that little klepto before it was too late!

He ventured up the back staircase. They looked questionable, but he wasn't planning on staying on them long. He sprinted up, and found himself standing in front of a large, glossed-over window which contained several lovely pieces of stained glass. He had admired this from the outside, but had never contemplated what it might be like to be this near to it from within. He liked it – it reminded him oddly of the view of the planet Hervang from the observatory of the TARDIS.

And when he was finished with this reverie, he turned.

A stone angel was baring her teeth and snarling, approximately two feet from where he was standing. His hearts each skipped two beats as he nearly ran smack into her. She reached out to him hungrily, her stone-cold eyes seeing him through their dead film. She stood absolutely still, and for an earth-shattering moment, so did he. He stared back at her, trying not to blink, as though they were both incapable of movement.

"Oh, you think you're so clever, don't you?" whispered the Doctor. "But I'm onto you. Oh, yes."

And then he found his faculties again. He glanced over the shoulder of the angel and saw two more, both pointed at the same destination. One was reaching out toward one of the bedroom doors, and the other was headed there as well. The one closest to him was still visible out of the corner of his eye, and he moved to his right, so as to keep all three within his line of sight. He stayed still for a moment, weighing his options. There was no way he could simply dash back down the stairs – they were unbelievably fast, and would catch him for sure. There was no way he could destroy them without taking his gaze from one of them or the other, and anyway, he had no desire to do that. He needed to tread slowly, carefully, stay in a position to keep them in sight. He moved to his right, farther away from all three angels, across from the bedroom door.

And then he heard a sound, coming from the bedroom where the angels were headed. The sound of looting, the sound of trinkets being moved about.

"Frannie!" he cried out. "Frannie, are you in there?"

The movement stopped dead. He knew she'd heard him.

"Come out here, right now, Frannie Obeng! You are in serious danger! I can help, just come through the door now."

Keeping his gaze trained on all three angels was not easy – the things stood at least ten feet apart, and they were only stationery because he kept them in his peripheral vision. But he was going to have blink some time. He wished he had just one more person...

"Martha!" he cried out. "Martha where are you? I could use a little help! Billy? Are you in the house?"

But neither answered. His eyes began to water. He was a threat to the angels now, standing in the way of their next meal, and oh, what hearty eating was a Time Lord all by himself! The potential energy he carried would make them fat and happy for decades. They wanted him now. If he blinked, it was all over. Martha would be left behind here, unable to fly the TARDIS, unable to find him. He supposed he could plant clues... the thought of it made him feel suddenly exhausted.

He wanted to blink so badly.

"Frannie!" he yelled again. "Get out here! Your life depends on it! All of our lives depend on it!"

He heard movement. He heard a bit of scraping against the door. She was leaning on it, listening.

"Frannie, listen – I know you're listening. I know you love this old house, but it's dangerous here. There are forces that you don't understand. Have you ever noticed the angel statues? Have you ever thought you saw one move out of the corner of your eye? Ever fancied that it had moved just a bit closer to you after you turned your back? I know you have. And you're right – they _are_ moving closer to you. They are trying to hurt you, and you need to get out of this house right now. I need you to open the door. Please, just open the door, and I can help you."

He heard the doorknob slowly twist. A bit of light then shined through the slit between the door and the wall, and Frannie Obeng's young face showed itself in the gap. She looked up at the angel which was reaching out to her, and she made a frightened little noise and stepped back. Her gaze was terrified. The Doctor had not seen the face of the angel she was looking at, but he could guess that it was in its bloodthirsty stance.

"It's okay, Frannie, it's okay," he said, not looking at her, but keeping his eyes on the angels. "Walk to me. Slowly."

She did. "Is this for real?" she croaked out, now clearly scared out of her wits. For all her skulking about, nothing had prepared her for the timbre of dread in the Doctor's voice, or for opening the bedroom door to find a stone statue trying to kill her. She took her place beside him and instinctively grabbed onto his arm.

"I wish it weren't," he told her. "Now, can you do me a favour? Can you look at that angel over there on the left"

"Why?" she asked, nevertheless obeying.

"Because if you can see them, they can't hurt you. I know that sounds like crazy monster-in-your-closet stuff, but it's true."

"Okay," she conceded. "I'm looking at it. Now what?"

He stared at the two near the bedroom door. "You don't take your eyes off that angel, do you hear me? I'm going to get us out of here, but you have to trust me."

"Okay."

"I'm serious – trust me. Do everything I tell you, can you do that, Francine?"

"I think so."

Still locked arm-in-arm, he led her toward the front stairs, opposite of how he had come up, each of them keeping their eyes on the angels. Frannie protested that she couldn't go down the stairs backwards, but the Doctor assured her she could. He promised to catch her if she fell. "Who will catch you?" she asked.

"Worrying, always worrying," he said, still guiding her slowly down the stairs. "You can trust me, when will you learn that?"

The two near the bedroom door were visible from their vantage point when they were halfway down, but Frannie lost sight of the singular angel. But it wasn't long before it appeared at the top of the stairs, arms over its head, terrifyingly baring its teeth. Frannie let out a scream. She began to tremble violently against his arm, and lost her footing for a moment. For a horrible second as he caught her, he thought they both might fall.

"Be careful, Francine! No breaking your neck – I need you healthy! I'm not losing Martha!"

"What?" she spat, managing to be confused through her terror.

He caught her, caught his own footing, and said, "Never mind, just don't fall, okay?"

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, the Doctor carefully extended one foot behind him, just to make sure he'd have floor underneath him. The other two angels were now at the top of the stairs – all three gazed down, stony-faced at him and Frannie. They'd have to continue to move backwards if they were going to survive.

"Just don't take your eyes off them," he whispered. "Try not to blink."

They stood still for a few moments. Frannie finally ventured to say, her voice shaking, "Why did you call me Francine?"

He almost took his gaze away from the angels to look at her. "I didn't," he insisted.

"Yes, you did, twice."

"Well, that's your name, isn't it?"

She hesitated. "How did you know that? Who are you?"

He sighed. Normally, in this sort of danger, he would confess that he was the Doctor. But he couldn't risk it – not with the future Francine Jones. So he said, "John Smith."

"And you know Martha?" she asked. "That weird woman who was here the other night when my sister fell?"

"Yes, I know her. She's... a friend of mine."

Frannie managed a nervous little chuckle. "You hesitated. She's _got _to be your girlfriend, at least! Am I right?"

He exhaled, annoyed. "We're in a deserted mansion, stone statues want to kill us, and you're asking personal questions!"

And then for a moment, he swooned with _déjà vu_. He had said something remarkably similar, in remarkably a similar tone of voice, to Martha when he'd first met her. That day in 2007 when Royal Hope Hospital went to the moon, and amid the chaos, he'd found one medical student who seemed for him a good companion. One among many who was both beautiful and brave. That was their first adventure together. That was the first time they'd kissed. And that was the night when her insane family had driven her into his TARDIS – this cheeky girl standing next to him, in fact, had been instrumental in Martha's snap decision to leave.

This cheeky girl had given him Martha. And not just because she would become an overly-protective mother, but she was _the mother_. She was the one who would, fifteen years from now, bring Martha Jones into the world. For that, he could not be annoyed with her.

His memories of Martha flooded his mind, all in a split second. Their first meeting, when she had almost literally touched his hearts. When she was put out by the Carrionites and for a moment, he thought she had died. When she was kidnapped on New Earth and he became obsessive about getting her back. He felt the full weight of guilt and pain over causing her to feel second best for so long, and even the memory of the moment when she let him know she loved him was painful. He thought about when he realised he loved her too, the first time they'd made love...

"Fine, fine, whatever," Frannie sighed, snapping him from his reverie.

"Now listen," he said to her. "There is still one more angel somewhere, but I don't know where it is. Martha and another friend of ours are on the house grounds somewhere, so it's likely that the other angel is contained, but we can't be certain. You keep those three in your line of vision, and I'm going to look about and try to find the fourth angel. Can you do that?"

The fear returned. "Don't leave me!" she begged.

"No, I'm not going anywhere, I'm just going to turn away for a few seconds, that's all."

She gulped. "Okay." Her voice was fragile now, as it had been before. The brief cheek had fully gone, and now she was appropriately frightened again. But before he could turn, she asked, "Mr. Smith? Why are you doing this? Why would you help me? I mean, what do you or Martha have to do with me?"

He thought for a moment. What could he say?

"She just wants you safe," he told her. "And what she wants, I want."

"You love her."

"Yes."

"And if something happened to me, she'd leave you?"

"Maybe."

"Okay then. Lead the way."

And once more, before he could turn and search for the fourth angel, he was interrupted. The most heart-stopping sound of his life cut through the air bluntly, jagged, like a dull axe. It was Martha's desperate, terrified voice screaming at the top of her lungs. She was screaming for her life.

"**_DOCTOR__!"_** she shrieked.

Without thinking, he turned toward the sound. The window at his back showed a large expanse of the grounds in front of the house, and the curtains were ripped, exposing the glass. He had turned just in time to see a the royal purple streak of Martha's dress as she ran for her life, ripping with a loud _pop _out of this time and place, as she was touched by an angel.

Abruptly, her cry was stifled and silence hung in the air.

All that remained in the yard was a still stone angel with its finger pointing to the spot where Martha Jones had been taken.

Frannie gasped violently, and the Doctor's hearts stopped.

_No no no no no....! Not again! This __will not__ happen to me again!_

"Martha!" he screamed, as he tore toward the front door.


	13. The Misery

THE MISERY

Billy followed the scream, and took off running as soon as he heard it. He arrived to find the Doctor standing in the front doorway, his face twisted with confused pain, his mouth open with silent protest.

"Doctor, I heard Martha screaming, where is she?"

The Doctor did not answer nor even look at Billy. He continued to stare at the spot where Martha disappeared. Five seconds ago, she was here. Now, she was gone – her life wasted and consumed, dead in the past somewhere.

Jaw clenched, he walked forward like a ghost. Ghostly was how he felt; he was empty, intemporal, ineffectual. His insides had gone with Martha. He reached out and touched the air she had last touched. He swore that he could still smell a bit of her perfume lingering. Her scream echoed inside his head, her last desperate cry for her life. In that last second, she had thought of him, called _his name_ – and he hadn't been able to save her.

This feeling, this hollow grief, was starting to seem all too familiar. Companions had come and gone from his life for nine-hundred-odd years, but why, why had recently there been such a run of sadness and disaster? Why would the universe bring great love into his life and allow it to be so hideously taken? Twice?

_Love. Lose. Grieve. Harden. Find someone new. Make them miserable until they finally hit you over the head with your own self-pity. Love. Lose. Grieve. Repeat until insane._

It didn't take a genius (or a former Detective Inspector) to work out what had happened after the Doctor had stood staring at the same spot for sixty seconds. In a very male gesture of solidarity, Billy briefly touched the Doctor's shoulder blade, then walked toward his camera, which he now knew had captured the horrible moment for all eternity.

"Er, Mr. Smith," a voice called from inside the house. "What do I do now?"

The Doctor was brought out of his stupor, but fortunately, he had the presence of mind to continue looking at the angel that had zapped Martha before turning to help Frannie.

"You go get her," Billy said, winding his film. "I'll keep an eye on this one."

The Doctor walked toward the house and went back inside. Frannie was standing halfway between the front window and the door, patiently still staring at the angels. The statues had now come halfway down the stairs. She must have turned away for a second when...

"They got closer," she said to him. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Frannie," he said softly. "Just back away. Watch your step."

He guided her out of the front of the house, and the three of them backed off of the grounds of Wester Drumlins. The Doctor gazed at the house with a seething hatred. He wished, more than anything, that he had never come here. This is where the life of a time traveller becomes unbearable – he _could_ go back and fix things, he had the means. But the rules of the universe forbade it.

_I'm so bloody sick of following the rules of the universe. All its done is taken everything from me._

He put his hand on Frannie's shoulder. Suddenly, this girl, who had seemed more trouble than she was worth, was precious to him. She represented hope. She was a connection to Martha, a promise that the future would hold better times, even if not for him anymore.

"Let's get you home," he said to her.

The three of them walked in silence for a bit, and finally, Frannie said, "It got her, didn't it? The angel got Martha?"

"Yes," he said, barely able to get the word out.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Smith," she said. "It's all my fault that she's gone."

He couldn't help but smile. He wanted to say, _It was because of you that she existed at all_, but he refrained. He had nothing to admonish the child for – he just squeezed her shoulder again and said, "Don't say that."

"I'm still sorry."

Frannie led the way to her family's home, which was no more than a ten-minute walk from Wester Drumlins. She seemed relieved to be home – she looked at the red brick house with love, then turned to the Doctor and Billy.

"Thanks, you know, for saving my life and all," she said.

The Doctor took a deep breath. "I suppose I don't have to tell you..."

"To stay away from that house? No, you don't," she assured him. "I promise. I'm never going back there again." She seemed deadly serious.

"Good," the Doctor told her. "You know it was because of Martha that we were there. If something happens to you, then she will have... it will all have been in vain."

"I know." Frannie was looking at the ground, like a child who had been shamed.

"Hey," he said, again, resting one hand on her shoulder. With the other hand, he turned up her chin. "It's okay. It's not your fault."

She nodded, without really looking him in the eyes. He figured that was just as well. He let go of her, and she headed toward the house. She turned back, and said, "Thanks," one more time. "And you too," she said to Billy.

"Don't mention it," Billy said, smiling.

The Doctor just watched her go. When she was inside the house, he turned away.

He and Billy walked side-by-side to Canada Water station, and said nothing. As they stood on the platform waiting for the train, Billy said, "Is there anything I can do?"

The Doctor didn't say anything for a few seconds, but then, he decided, "Marry Sally Pfitzinger. Have a great life together. Feel lucky."

This made Billy immensely sad. Sally had been the most comforting aspect of being here in 1969, the primary thing that made this scenario bearable. He could stand the time-travel nonsense and knowing he'd never see his family again because _she _was here for him. He guessed that the Doctor must have felt the same way about Martha, only his own time-travel nonsense was much more intense, and his loneliness must extend into the far reaches of the galaxy. He couldn't imagine now losing Sally – how could the Doctor lose Martha and hope to go on?

"What will you do now?"

"Move on. Eventually."

But the question of moving on without her could not be contemplated, not just now. He had his TARDIS, but what he needed was a bit of silence and wait. Yes, he had been _waiting_ for over a month, for an opportunity, for a camera, for the TARDIS, for Billy, for Frannie... He was well practised, and now he would wait again for something else. Wait for a sign, a message. Perhaps Martha would find a way to let him know how to find her.

Or he would just wait to be ready. Wait to harden himself again. Just the idea of beginning the process all over made him feel exhausted. But of course, bigger than that, much bigger, was the deep, welling grief he felt over the idea of never seeing or touching Martha Jones again.

The train came, and the two men stepped on. There weren't many people, and it was not difficult to find seats. They sat together, Billy with his bulky camera in his lap, the Doctor with his hands folded.

"I'll cancel with Sally tonight," Billy said.

"No, don't do that," the Doctor said. He was staring at nothing in particular.

"You just lost the woman you love," Billy said, softly. "And you're my friend. Sally will understand."

"I want you to be with her," the Doctor insisted. "Go on your date and be happy."

Billy contemplated. Then, "What if I invite her to your flat? Two friends are better than one."

"That will just depress her."

"What's a little misery among friends, eh?"

The Doctor finally looked at him, and smiled weakly. "Fine. But if she doesn't want to, don't make her. You go take her dancing or something. Life's too short for this. Well, yours is, anyway."

* * *

When they reached their building, Billy phoned Sally from the Doctor's flat. Then he went home to shower, promising to be back in twenty minutes with Sally.

And again, the Doctor was alone. Martha's brown mesh sweater lay squashed on the armchair where she had shed it, and then sat against it for hours. The duster lay abandoned on the tiny dining table-for-two, where she had left it, following him out the door in the middle of dusting the curtains. She had stepped out of a pair of high-heeled shoes yesterday when she came home upset over her difficult customer, and they lay all tiny and sideways now near the door.

Numbness came over his body – he couldn't cry, he couldn't speak, he couldn't feel. It was like Martha was a ghost now. Mechanically, he picked up her shoes and sweater and carried them into the bedroom, out of sight of his projected guests.

And oh, the bedroom. The bed was still unmade, and Martha's pillow still had a dent. Her side of the bed was always neat and folded aside when she climbed out of it, while his side was always sloppy and crinkled. It had been a couple of nights since they'd made love, so everything was in its proper, post-sleep place. A couple of nights was as long as they ever went, and only when life really got in the way.

He closed his eyes and remembered, took in the scent. There she was – it's like she'd lived here for decades. She was in his body, in his mind, his senses...

And it hurt.

_But she's clever. Maybe I'll get a letter from her at any moment that's been sitting in some post office for eighty years..._

And the knock came.

But it was too good to be true. It was just Billy and Sally with some wine and a homemade dinner that she had prepared for herself and Billy, but she insisted there was enough for three.

Explaining to Sally what had happened to Martha was awkward. She knew nothing about where they all had come from, about Billy's mission to help the Doctor, about time travel, any of it. And she certainly couldn't be told about the stone statues that come to life when you turn your back.

"We were trying to help a girl, because she'd wandered into a deserted house and gotten into trouble, and when we came back outside, Martha was gone," the Doctor said. It was the truth, but he had intentionally made it sound as though she had been kidnapped. "We never should have left her."

"Did you inform the police?" asked Sally.

"Of course," Billy cut in. "But they said they cannot do anything until she's been missing for twenty-four hours. It's a police thing."

Sally let a puff of air escape between her teeth. "Bloody coppers."

Billy resisted the urge to defend his profession, as it wasn't his profession anymore. She had no idea he had been a DI in another life. The Doctor had urged him never to tell her – secrets in time are best kept close.

"We'll just ring them again tomorrow," the Doctor said, sighing.

"Well, how about some shepherd's pie?" asked Sally, heading for the kitchen. She had brought a giant casserole wrapped in a mesh shoulder bag, and had set it on the counter when she had arrived.

"Sounds great," the Doctor conceded, not really caring much at all to eat. He moved to stand.

"No, you sit," Billy said. "We'll get everything ready."

The Doctor didn't argue, but just sank gratefully back into the sofa.

Billy and Sally prepared three plates of shepherd's pie, canned peaches and salad. They tittered about in the kitchen clumsily, while the Doctor stared at the wall, sipping wine, pining.

And then he saw it. At first it was just a black blob in the corner. Billy's camera case, which he had left here after phoning Sally.

He stared at the case.

It wasn't too long before Billy came back into the room with two plates, and caught him staring. "I know what you're thinking, mate," Billy whispered to him. His speaking surprised the Doctor, startled him, even. He'd thought he was alone in his mind.

"What?"

"And I'm not going to let you do that to yourself," Billy continued, as if the Doctor hadn't spoken at all. "If you watch this tape, it will just be torture. Just forget about it. I'm erasing it when I get to work tomorrow."

The Doctor stared back at him with a kind of resolve. "If you were me, would you let you erase it?"

"I wouldn't want to, but I would see the sense behind it," Billy said. "Come on, man. You already lived through it once today! Do you really need to see it again?"

Sally entered the room with three glasses of wine. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," said Billy. "Just Martha." He went back to the kitchen for the other plate as Sally sat down with the Doctor.

The three of them shared a congenial meal. Sally asked if the Doctor minded telling them how he'd met Martha. He told the truth, though left out the part about 2007 and the moon. She asked a lot of questions, and he talked quite a bit, much to his own surprise. He talked about "an ex-girlfriend" who had "died," (which was easier than explaining what really happened to Rose), and how when he and Martha first began spending time together, he had made her utterly miserable for a while. Then, eventually, a mutual friend had helped him see the light. The rest was history – he'd been in love with Martha, and now she was gone.

His friends stayed until well after midnight. Eventually, reminiscing about Martha turned to laughing about other things, discussions of video production and the current political situation. When they left, the Doctor found that they seemed to suck all the vitality out of the room with them. Once again, the flat seemed like a dead place, filled with long-ago memories and the ghost of Martha. How long could he really stay here and wait?

Again, Billy had forgotten to take his camera case, but the Doctor felt that he couldn't watch the reel just now. Instead, he retired to an empty bed, without changing out of his suit or pulling back the covers. Sleep came easily, as an escape.

* * *

In the morning, Martha was still gone. Not that he had expected otherwise, but such was his first thought as he opened his eyes: she's still gone.

In wrinkled clothes, he wandered out to the kitchen. He put some foul coffee grounds in the percolator and plugged it in. He stood, leaning against the kitchen counter. He asked himself a million questions. How did this happen? What could have been done differently? Where was Martha now, and how long should he wait for a sign?

And then he saw the black blob in the corner again. He shouldn't. He should just let it go and be done with it, and stop flogging himself, stop with the self-loathing, the wallowing...

But who was he kidding? He knew from the start he'd watch the tape one way or another, it was just a question of how much hemming and hawing he'd have to do before deciding finally just to play the damn thing.

He inspected the back of the bulky television set, which he and Martha had never even turned on while living here. There were no hook-ups for a recording device, which wasn't surprising, but no matter. A few sonic buzzes here and there, and the television was showing a grainy film of Wester Drumlins, wobbling as the camera was carefully set down and then left to run.


	14. The Tape

THE TAPE

For several minutes, nothing happened, the tape simply ran with a single image of the front and part of the side of the mansion. He fast-forwarded until he saw himself and Frannie appear in the front window. They had stood there frozen for a minute or two, talking about Martha. He had been thinking about her then, remembering their moments together, sizing up how much he loved her.

And then on the left side of the screen, Martha appeared. He gulped down a sob when he saw her. Even on this awful, grainy home movie, she was beautiful. It pained him to see her in her last few moments before their world shattered – he supposed this was why Billy had tried to stop him seeing this reel.

She was looking about, clearly trying to be conscious of the angels, should any of them turn up. She walked up to the house and stood on tiptoes, looking in through a window. She opened the cellar door, and seemed to call out for Frannie, but thought better of going inside

When she began to back away from the cellar door, the Doctor sighed. This would prove her undoing. She was searching far off in the wooded-over garden area for the angels, for a few moments forgetting to look all around her. On the right side of the screen, an angel appeared. It floated, moving toward Martha calmly, as though it were overly confident that she would not turn and see it. She was backing toward it, casting eyes over the grounds in an effort to avoid this very scenario.

And the awful moment seemed to happen in a split second, almost in an imperceptible flash. He heard her scream his name and then disappear as the angel reached out to her. He watched himself on the other side of the front window. He hadn't realised he'd done it, but he'd thrown himself against the window in a surge of horror before shouting her name and bolting through the front door. He watched the next thirty seconds as Frannie turned her attention back to the angels on the stairs, the Doctor walked out of the house like a zombie to touch the air that Martha had last breathed, and Billy appeared after having followed the sound. And then Billy approached the camera, and the image went to grey snow.

He couldn't comprehend what had taken place. He understood that when one thinks one might be surrounded, one cannot keep a three-hundred-sixty degree view around one's person. He understood why she backed away, he did not fault her for that. But she must have known the angel was there, at least for a second, because she screamed for him, and if she knew it was there, then she must have seen it, in which case, how could it touch her?

He watched it again from the point where Martha wandered into the frame, all the way up to the grey snow. Then again, only this time, when the angel came into view, he watched it in slow motion. The answer became a bit clearer. In the space of one or two seconds, she turned, saw the angel less than a foot away from her, and in a blast of startled panic, screamed out his name and tried to run. It had happened so fast that no one could have stopped it – even the camera didn't move fast enough to catch it fully. Of course, she knew that turning and running from a Weeping Angel was futile, but _knowing_ doesn't help much when you're suddenly surprised and flooded with swift and blinding fear.

He watched it a fourth time at full-speed, paying full attention to the angel itself. And something caught his eye, a detail he had missed on previous viewings. After zapping Martha, the angel seemed to swoon. It didn't move, because Billy must have come close enough to see it, and then the Doctor was outside staring at it, but it definitely weakened. It became transparent for a brief second, and then again, and then it was solid once more.

He thought about the angels, how they live, how they feed, how they work. _The eat the future_. Almost literally. There would be no reason for a conquest like this to weaken one of them unless...

The Doctor stood up suddenly. He buried both hands in his hair and tugged until it hurt. His face contorted in deep thought. His eyes bulged with cautious hope, and his body began to hum with something like genius. Without even switching off the television or the camera, he flew out the door and ran down the stairs.

Billy was standing in front of the building, waving to taxi which carried Sally Pfitzinger, who was waving back.

"Billy!" the Doctor shouted. "When that angel touched you, what did it sound like?"

"What?" asked Billy, still a bit bleary-eyed at the early hour.

"What did it sound like? Did you hear a pop?"

"Why, what difference does it make?"

"I'm not sure yet," the Doctor said, beginning to pace. "But it might do, still. Can you remember the sound?"

Billy thought about it. He closed his eyes for a moment, and said, "I was in the parking garage. Sally Sparrow left. The angels were surrounding the blue box. I got closer to them... and then I blinked..."

He was silent, and the Doctor gave him time to process.

"...I landed across town, against a brick wall... it was like... _whoosh!_ You know? _Whoosh._"

"Whoosh when you left or whoosh when you landed?"

"Well... it was like whoosh when I left, but then when I landed, it sounded like... I don't know, like a motor powering down. Like it was out of juice. Could you hear it when you found me?"

"We didn't hear anything," the Doctor told him. "Only you. But the point is, when Martha and I were zapped in 2007, it was the same angel that zapped you. And what we heard was definitely a _pop_ or a _bang_. Why would the same angel pop for us, and whoosh for you?"

Billy looked at him incredulously. He exhaled through pursed lips. "Okay, it's definitely too early for this conversation. Want to get some coffee?"

"There's some fresh percolating in my flat – you're welcome to it. I have to go."

"Go where?"

"Wester Drumlins," the Doctor said, beginning to walk away.

"Oh no, Doctor, don't do that! What for?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you!"

"I believe an awful lot of crazy stuff now. At least let me come with you," Billy called, trying to catch up.

"Well, then, shake a leg."

Being a much smaller, and less determined man than was the Doctor, Billy had to jog a bit to keep up. They rounded the corner toward the courtyard. "The tube station is the other way, Doctor."

"Not taking the tube," the Doctor muttered. "Just one thing, Billy. You _did_ say that you were zapped _after_ you had collected the police box from the house?"

"Yes, why?"

"Well..." the Doctor said, entering the decaying courtyard. They traipsed through the leaves and moist muck until they found the TARDIS, hidden away in the clutter. The Doctor gestured to it, as though introducing Billy to an old friend, which was, in fact, what he was doing.

"It's a police box," Billy said flatly. "Those things are everywhere in the 60's."

"Look closer."

Billy squinted. "The windows are the wrong size! Oh my God, this is the _same_ police box. It's yours?"

"It's the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "It travels in time and space. It's going to help us get Martha back."

"Did you find out what year she wound up in?" asked Billy, stepping toward the TARDIS, touching the outside.

"I don't need to. I discovered the whooshing."

Billy looked at him and blinked hard. "Okay. Lost me."

The Doctor used his key to open the TARDIS door, then said, "That's okay. For now, just step into my office."

"Seriously?"

"Of course."

Billy stepped inside and looked around with awe. He seemed unable to speak. The console room glowed, and the TARDIS made a little groan in solidarity with the Doctor.

"What was that?" asked Billy, staring wide-eyed at the console.

"Er, well, the TARDIS is alive. It senses that I'm in grief," he answered, clearing his throat. "It knows what happened to Martha."

"How does it know?" asked Billy, walking toward the centre of the room.

"Well, like I said, it's alive. It's alive and sentient. It has perspective over all time and all life in the universe. It is connected to everything, especially those who travel within. The TARDIS' technology is such that it envelops and protects its travellers, and vice versa. There is a psychic and physical connection between me and the TARDIS, and between Martha and the TARDIS. It can feel her absence, and it can feel my pain."

"Wow," Billy sighed, running his hand gently over the edge of the console. "So, does that mean if the TARDIS is in pain, you and Martha can feel it also?"

"I can, definitely," he Doctor answered, leaning against the stool. "And in time, Martha should be able to, as well. The TARDIS leaves its mark, for sure." He stepped forward and began the dance, circling round the console, flipping and turning, buzzing and popping.

The TARDIS began its grinding journey toward Wester Drumlins. Billy grabbed onto a railing and braced himself for the always-bumpy journey. When the vehicle stopped, the Doctor ran to the window and looked out.

"There they are," he said.

Billy joined him at the window. "All four."

"I'm glad you're here, Billy," the Doctor said. "This would have been mightily difficult to do on my own. I'm going to need your eyes."

"You mean, you want me to watch them while you do whatever it is you're going to do."

Without answering, the Doctor opened the door, and they both stepped out of the TARDIS.

"Notice anything funny?" the Doctor asked.

A pause, and then Billy said, "That one is still standing in the same spot, isn't it?"

"Right you are, Billy."

The Doctor approached the angel that had zapped Martha, which, eighteen hours later, was still in the same place, in the same position, with its finger pointing at the spot where Martha had been consumed.

"Why can't it move?"

"It's weak," the Doctor said. "Swallowing Martha's potential energy made it weak."

"How?" Billy's face showed genuine interest, genuine confusion.

"Martha's potential energy is tainted with the past," the Doctor said. "These things feed on the future, but Martha is a time-traveller. In her future, lies the past. The angel found it a bitter pill, and it's taking a bit of time to digest her. I expect in another few days, it will be fine, but for the moment, it has been significantly abated."

Billy thought about it. Was he actually getting smarter, or had hanging around the Doctor been doing him some good? Because what the Doctor had said actually made sense to him. Except for one thing. "What was all that business about the whooshing?"

The Doctor began circling around the angel. He patted it on the wing. "I saw this lovely lady here fade out, flicker a few times on the tape, right after Martha disappeared, and it reminded me of something. A couple of weeks ago, Martha and I went to this planet where... well, let's just say, these animals, if they eat something tainted, they have to regurgitate it because they cannot digest it."

"I see," Billy said. "Wait. No I don't."

He stopped circling the angel and faced Billy. Emphatically, he explained, "Well, I suspected that Martha was tainted by the past, and that's what was causing the angel to weaken, but at first it seemed barmy – I mean, what kind of stone gets weakened by something so simple? But then again, what kind of stone can move at all?"

"I'm with you there."

"But, as I said, I _suspected_. And suspecting is a far-cry from knowing, you know? So that's why I asked about the sound the angel made when it zapped you. It usually makes a _pop_, the sound of temporal power being exerted at its fullest and most brutal. But, I wondered if the angels would lose temporal power if their diet of futures was contaminated – and as it turned out, the answer was yes. When the angel _whooshed_ you, it had recently _popped_ us. We were tainted with the past – especially me! Therefore, when it got to you, it was strong enough to move, but still not strong enough to _pop_. So it _whooshed_. Its temporal power was not in top form, so you even heard it 'powering down', like you said."

He circled around that one angel several more times while Billy attempted to process that information, and kept the other angels at bay. Then, the Doctor began to push on the stone surface.

"What are you doing?" asked Billy.

"I'm going to bring her aboard," the Doctor said. "Now, I really need you to keep your eyes on those three, Billy, because now they think I'm kidnapping their friend. Also, if they got hold of the TARDIS, well... you saw that they followed it across town in 2007 when the police picked it up. They could end the world if they got hold of this thing, so keep them away, understand?"

"Sure."

"Okay."

The Doctor pressed his back against the stone angel and pushed with his legs. It scraped across the ground harshly, displacing the dust and exposing the moist clay underneath. When it reached the TARDIS' door, the Doctor turned it around, opened the other door and went inside the vessel. He tipped it backwards and began pulling it across the metal floor and up the ramp by the wings. Billy stood still and stoic outside, watching the three pursuing angels. The Doctor assured him that he would not leave him here, then he shut the TARDIS doors, and was left in the console room with the lonely assassin who had taken Martha from him.

He wasn't sure if the Weeping Angels could feel fear, but he figured if they could, now would be a good time. Not that he had any plans to do them harm – he just wanted his companion back. But he didn't mind making this one shake in its metaphorical shoes, just for a bit.

He looked at the statue as he worked. He didn't think it could move again for a few days, even if no-one could see it, but he didn't want to take the chance, not here inside the TARDIS.

He smirked at it, groping around on the console, only slightly handicapped by not being able to look directly at the controls. "You're choking on her, aren't you? She's giving you a right nasty tummy ache. Well, do you know what I have to say about that, my friend? _Ha!_"

The TARDIS console powered up, and let out a hum. A beam of light came from one of the controls and shined on the angel.

"Thank you, Shakespeare!" he cried out. "Thank you Manhattan! Thank you, Family of Blood!" He watched the light intently, listened to the hum as its pitch mounted little by little. Soon, it was a screech.

And then the room was filled, his head was echoing, with the TARDIS' otherworldly cry morphing into Martha's final scream.

_**"DOCTOR!"**_ he heard, precisely the same as yesterday. Not just the same voice, not just an echo of that moment, but it was _the same scream_. The moment wasn't over. Martha's moment of disappearance had been suspended somehow, incomplete for the past 18 hours.

And with the _whoosh_ that Billy had described, a ray of light, brighter even than the light coming from the TARDIS, came forth from the angel's finger. It was like a spout, and it grew in intensity and size until a sudden surge of energy pushed out the form of Martha Jones. She was still wearing the purple dress, and she was still screaming.

She screamed for another half-second, and then finished. Because she had been running, she seemed to fall foward against the console, and before she could bounce back, the Doctor caught her.

She took a moment to get her bearings, and then seemed to come to all at once. She looked around, then seemed to become aware that someone was holding her. She looked up at the Doctor. "Hi," she said, a bit surprised to see him.

"Hi," he said back, his brows raised, eyes brimming with tears. "All right, eh?"

"Erm, yeah," she said, confused. "How did I get in here?"

He pulled her close, and the tears fell. "The TARDIS saved you." He knew he must be smothering her with emotion, but he couldn't stop. "Martha... Martha... I... I can't believe I almost lost you... I'll never leave you alone again. I would have been so lost without you, Martha..."

She hugged him back, but was confused. She almost chuckled. "Doctor, what are you on about? And what is _that _doing in here?" She was referring to the one stone angel sitting inexplicably in the console room.

"We needed it to get you back," he told her, still holding tight. He smelled her hair, felt the soft crocheted mesh of her dress, the gentle curve of her hip underneath. He relished the smallness of her body within his long arms, the way her head fit perfectly against him, right under his chin. At last, he pulled away. He ran his hands over her the sides of her face, and felt her soft cheek and the smoothness of her hair. He took her by the shoulders, looked her squarely in the eye, and said, "I love you. So much. _So much_. Desperately."

Her eyes betrayed worry then, but she was moved. The Doctor's raw, but unexplained emotion was infectious and bringing her confusedly into her own emotional daze. When she thought she would break from the sheer intensity, he finally pulled her tight for a kiss, and their lips interlocked thirstily. Their arms encircled each other and they just enjoyed a quiet, beautiful moment as lovers once more.

The weakened angel stood and watched. It was still too feeble to move.

Suddenly, the Doctor pulled away. "Blimey!" He ran down the ramp and threw open the door. "Billy, get in here!"

Billy came through the door, and the Doctor dashed back to the console. Utterly shocked to see Martha, Billy nearly knocked her off her feet with an excited hug as the TARDIS' gears ground up and left all four angels behind. Martha hadn't been aware that it could do that, but the Doctor flippantly replied that the TARDIS could do almost anything, and he winked.

When the TARDIS came to a stop, Billy, who had spent last night with the grieving Doctor, said, "I'll let myself out. Just promise you will come and say goodbye before you leave for good, okay?"

Dimly, the Doctor had some thought that Billy was quite a sensitive fellow, but he and Martha were basically too busy gazing at each other across the lights to acknowledge him properly. So they both nodded and said a distracted goodbye.

When Billy was gone, Martha asked, "Are you going to tell me why you're insane?"

"Afterwards."

And before she could take another breath, she was off her feet, in his arms and being carried to bed.


	15. The Reunion

**_THIS IS THE FINAL CHAPTER OF MISS OBENG. I JUST COULDN'T GO OUT WITH OUT ONE MORE GOOD SMUTTY SCENE! I COULDN'T DENY MY TWO FAVORITE CHARACTERS THEIR SWEAT-SOAKED REUNION!_**

THE REUNION

The next half hour was a frenzy of clothes flying, hands wandering, blankets twisting, flesh sliding, lips searching, words escaping, breath accelerating, heartbeats hastening, pleasure exploding, the universe stopping.

As Martha lay, gasping for air, coming down from her second climax, realising that the Doctor was nowhere near finished, she hissed, "_Whoa_, what's got into you?"

"Eighteen hours," hissed back, never stopping, never slowing down. "Lost you." His lips found her neck, his tongue teased at the flesh, and his fingers buried themselves in her hair. He let out some sort of sound that more closely resembled a growl than a groan, and he squeezed her, drove into her, tried to possess every inch of her, inside and out.

"Eighteen hours?" she asked, her mind less and less focused on the dialogue with every move he made.

"Hell," he told her. "I thought... I thought..."

She held him tighter with the realisation of what he meant. "I'm sorry," she said, still panting with exertion. "For me it was an instant."

"For me it was a lifetime," he panted back. "I can't think..." His entire body was consumed. He wanted her, he had her. He needed her, he needed to keep her. Every moment that went by seemed to make him more desperate to claim her, yet he knew she was his. His body was telling him to press forward, though, press harder, until they were both sure.

Martha felt herself begin to make the ascent one more time, and she let him know – her moment would come again soon. His body tightened, and then every molecule within both of their bodies seemed to give way somehow, as though there had been a dam holding everything back. Their voices cut across the air like a splatter of paint on a white surface, and their colours mixed into a kind of blue music.

And then the frenzy died down. But it was at least fifteen minutes before either one of them regained feeling enough to speak. Eventually, she turned on her side and faced him, and he did likewise. Their skin had returned to a normal, fleshy hue, and their minds were reasonably coherent now.

Lying in a dim gold light, exuding her own kind of glow, Martha asked, "_That_ was the result of an eighteen-hour separation?"

The Doctor didn't answer, he just lay on his side and stared at her, grinning.

"That's not even a whole day!"

He smiled back, unapologetic, utterly sated.

"Wow," she blinked. "Less than a day, and you're that energetic."

"I'd love to make a crude joke right now," he said. "But I don't want to spoil the moment." He leaned forward and kissed her bare shoulder, and for the umpteenth time over the past year, marveled at how simply breathtaking she was. "It really was instantaneous for you?" he asked.

She raised one eyebrow.

"The angel thing," he said, sighing. "Not the other thing."

"Yes," she laughed. "One second I'd turned to run from the angel, the next second, I was in the TARDIS with you."

"No separation at all?"

"None."

He flopped down on his back, disturbing the covers. "Blimey. You're lucky."

"Sounds like. Did Billy sit up with you all night?"

"For a bit. Sally too. Eventually they left, and I slept for a while. It was pretty awful," he said, reaching for her. "I thought there was a good chance I might never see you again. Even for just eighteen hours, that was as much grief as I can take right now. No more, I say."

She lay her head down on his chest and heard the dual heartbeat, slowing down from their latest exertion. "How did you get me back?" she asked.

"You gave the angel indigestion," he said. "It's like the Silaero that eat light sources, but they can't handle the taint of darkness. The angels eat the future, but your future contains the taint of the past."

"Whoa!" she said.

"Yep. So I channeled a bit of the energy of yours that is carried within the TARDIS, and shined it on the angel. The contamination became too much, and it spit you out. We gave it a heavy dose of _the past_, and we won."

"I'm vomit."

"Well," he said, drawing out that syllable. "Not exactly. Anyway, it's better than the alternative."

"True," she agreed, smiling. Then, suddenly she remembered, "Oh God! My mum!"

"It's taken care of," he said, stroking her head. "She was so shaken over what happened to you, I don't think she'll be going back there any time soon. Besides, she and I had a _harrowing_ encounter with the angels in the house."

"You and she? Really? I hope she didn't get a good look at you."

"She never really looked at my face because we were so busy trying to keep our eyes on the angels. I'd be surprised if she could pick me out of a line-up."

"If you say so," she said.

"I do," he told her. "And you know what else I say? Let's move the hell on."

"Amen," she sighed. "Thank God!"

* * *

_**ONE WEEK LATER...**_

The sun was hot, the the humidity downright oppressive. But none of that mattered because the ocean, the palm trees, the Mai Tais... they were heavenly.

Martha Jones lay on a teak lounge chair, slowly sipping tropical juices with rum, admiring the blue all around, waiting. She had promised to go snorkeling this week, and today was perhaps the day. But for the moment, she'd just wait to be summoned and hide behind her sunglasses.

"Hello," a voice said behind her. His hands touched her bare shoulders and massaged them softly. He kissed her ear. "What have you been up to this morning?"

"Basking. Getting slowly drunk. Giving myself skin cancer."

He came around to her right and looked over the top of his sunglasses at her turquoise string bikini. "Looking somehow _very_ hot in very little clothing."

She feigned offence. "It's the most I've worn in forty-eight hours! I'm practically an eskimo!" she said.

"Touché," the Doctor said. "I suppose these things are all relative. Not that I'm complaining."

She looked at him naughtily. "I'd hope not. Did you tell housekeeping they can come back in now?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, sitting down on an adjacent teak ottoman. "And I apologised for the unfortunate mishap."

"We _really_ should have had the sign on the door," she sighed.

"How could we have forgotten?"

"For two straight days!"

"No one wants to see me from that angle," he insisted. "And I _know_ I should be working on my tan." He mock-shuddered, and she laughed.

And they both sighed.

"Fancy a snorkel?" he asked.

"Meh," she whined. "I'd rather just sit here. We've exerted ourselves plenty – I'm tired. Besides, I've been drinking."

"Okay," he shrugged. "Have it your way. I guess I'd better catch up." He waved at a waiter and pointed to Martha's glass, and held up two fingers. The waiter nodded and scurried away.

He moved a lounge chair up next to hers, took the towel off his shoulder and threw it onto the back of the chair. As he was kicking off his flip-flops, it was Martha's turn to peek over her sunglasses at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Are you _seriously_ wearing brown pin-striped swimming trunks?"

He looked down at his knee-length nylon shorts. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," she sang, stifling a chuckle. "Did Converse manufacture your flip-flops?"

Cautiously, he said, "Yes. What of it?"

She burst out laughing, but said nothing.

With a look of amused scorn, he lounged next to her. Another round of drinks came, and for a while, they just sat there, letting Tahiti do its good work.

And then a noise. A _neener-neener_ sounded from the pink canvas bag at Martha's side, indicating that she was receiving a text message. She extracted her mobile phone and opened the display.

"It's Billy," she said, puzzled. She looked at the Doctor and said, "It _is _2007, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I gave him universal roaming. For emergencies only, though. What's he got to say?"

"He and Sally are engaged," she said, scrunching her nose. "Wow, that's awfully quick."

"Oh, they'll be all right," the Doctor assured her. "We know that for a fact, don't we?"

"I suppose," she sighed. "I wonder if they'll have any children."

"Oddly, I don't know," he answered.

Her thumb flashed over the keys of her mobile. She shut it, and put it back in her pink bag.

"What did you say?" he asked her.

"I tried to one-up him," she said. "Told him we'd run off and got married over the week-end."

He looked at her with a bit of horror. "You didn't."

"Of course I didn't, I said congratulations," she laughed. "You are too easy to wind up today! It's a holiday – relax."

"Easy for you to say. How many Mai Tais have you had?"

"Erm, four?"

"Martha! It's ten in the morning!"

"I know, but it's so hard to care."

He sighed with a fleeting frustration and took his place once again staring at the sea and the pretty people. He sipped along with her. They held hands and let the rays wash away the London February they had recently endured.

Before long, Martha's pink bag was _neener_ing again.

"Ugh," the Doctor groaned. "You know, if you want me to relax, you can start by killing your phone."

She dug it out of the bag, and checked the display. She smiled. "It's my mum."

"Hmph," he said. "What does she want?"

"She's still doing that _come home, it's not safe, the Doctor is dangerous _thing."

"Yeah, stay away from the dangerous, dangerous Doctor, but traipsing about in termite-infested houses is fine, so long as you don't get caught stealing. Sure. Why not?"

Martha sighed. "You know, someday we'll have to tell her about us."

To her surprise, the Doctor actually laughed. "She already thinks it, Martha. She knew it long before we did."

"Well, long before _you_, maybe," Martha said, again, peeking over her glasses. "I knew all along."

"In any case, I don't think she'll be surprised. Pissed off, okay, but not surprised."

"You know what? I think..."

But the thought died in her mouth. A dull roar that seemed to come from the bowels of the Earth rose up and shook the ground. Across the resort area, scores of people began fleeing from one of the hotels, screaming in almighty fear.

Martha and the Doctor looked at each other.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," he said. They clinked their glasses together, each took a sip, and then, hand-in-hand, they ran toward the screaming.

**END**

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**_THANK YOU THANK YOU! AS ALWAYS, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. THANK YOU FOR THE LOVELY COMMENTS - I HOPE YOU'LL STICK WITH ME!_**

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